Posted: 03 July 2009 at 12:46 | IP Logged

this was our first camping trip in quite a while and it turned out rather well. had a great time and look forward to the next one ~ here's how it went:

the location was bear paw lake, about 17 miles south of havre montana in be bear paw mountains. i left work at 1630 on friday 19jun and went straight out to the camping spot. the boys had already set up camp and melissa and the little guy were fishing. things were looking pretty good but we needed firewood. the two older boys hadn't brought a saw or hatchet (yikes!) so we went on a firewood run a bit deeper into the mountains of the area. we stopped at a place just outside of the reservation near the creek that had plenty of deadfall and started collecting wood. managed to get a pretty good haul and a good mix of small wood and large wood. could have used more, but this was all good.
 
when we got back, we started fishing and getting the fire going good for supper. on the menu was deer steaks and potatoes cooked in foil over the fire with an italian-style pasta salad. not too bad at all ~ we fished a while and did pretty well, taking in quite a few rainbow trout; they were on the smallish side, none longer than a foot, but there were many of them and with ultralight fishing gear, they put up a great fight. we released most of them, but kept a few for cooking over the fire the next day. we kept fishing until the sun went down (which takes quite a while in this latitude) and then gathered around the campfire for marshmallows, s'mores, jiffy pop and something the kids found at the store called "funky flames" these were little packets that you throw on the fire to get all kinds of colors. kids were impressed - i tried to get a few pictures but didn't succeed very well. melissa had found some strawberry-flavored marshmallows to toast and even though they were a little soft for toasting over the fire (it's as if they had more gelatin than normal in them, or something), they tasted very good and if a person was careful success was not too difficult.
 
the boys and i recalled that there was a small supply of firewood at the now-empty boy scout campground about half a mile away, so we made a "midnight run" to grab it. since there were other campers nearby there and we didn't want to disturb them, i had the boys run what my son mike called a "covert op" and had them be as quiet as possible - they managed not to wake anyone up,but someone had beaten us to the wood. no big deal, we had enough.
 
finally, it was off to bed - the boys had their tents and we had ours - even roger slept in his own. it was a bit cool (in the 40s) but not too bad at all - i've been camping overnight when it was 12 degrees and this was pretty nice compared to that.

woke up the next morning around 0530 to the call of a loon on the lake, but dozed off aging for an hour or so before getting up and getting the fire going again. immediately resumed fishing and had a good time until everyone else got up. i had left a line set overnight baited with a nightcrawler in the hopes of catching a brown trout, but no joy. mike had also left one and he caught a rainbow trout - it had gone into an area with cattails and he had to wade out to get it, but it was all good. it was only hooked in the jaw, so he let it go.
 
i'll pause a moment here to mention that there were many, many species of birds around and it was truly a beautiful site to see on top of so many others. throughout the campout we watched a pair of hawks catch fish to feed their young, red-winged blackbirds nesting and flying about, robins, loons, ducks, families of geese with goslings, eastern kingbirds, woodpeckers and many others. throughout it all was the presence of my favorite songbird, the western meadowlark. this area, though not as popular or majestic as the rockies or as stately as the appalachians, is a very fine place where prairies and lakes meet mountains and streams; i honestly can't think of anywhere else i would rather spend time with my family, and i've been to a few truly beautiful places.
 
we cooked a simple breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs with crumbled bacon and cheese. i was going to show the boys how to do biscuits in foil or leaves on the fire, but we'd forgotten to pack any ingredients for this ~ something for next time! we spent the morning fishing and looking around - billy, roger and i gathered a bit more wood from a nearby area. even when there's enough wood, i always feel like there's gotta be more - no real reason, but it never hurts. we fixed a shore lunch around 1300 consisting of foiled trout, hamburgers, chips and hot dogs on a stick over the fire. nothing tastes quite as good as a lunch like this!
 
we fished a while in the afternoon, but the weather was starting to turn; it had been sprinkling a little off and on throughout the campout, but it was always very light and no big deal. we decided to break camp and continue fishing, and this took a little longer than it probably should have, but all was good. we left around 1800 after doing a final "policing" of the area to make sure that we were packing out everything that we had packed in. we found a few bits of trash left behind by previous campers, and removed this as well. we scooted on back to havre and then on to home.
 
as i said before, it's been quite a while since we'd been able to do any camping; a lack of time and equipment had always seemed to keep us from this goal. i want to give many thanks to melissa for taking the initiative on this and getting everything gathered up and organized while i was at work - also for coming along on a weekend that was definitely out of her comfort zone when she could have been doing a lot of other things. My boys did a great job of setting up and taking down camp, and i had a lot of fun with them on this father's day weekend, so thanks to my family!

here are some pix:

Posted: 05 July 2009 at 00:02 | IP Logged

 Nice photos. How much of that area is on the reservation? How much is a tribal fishing permit? I finally got out on the river today. It was real slow at first but the last hour they hit fast and furious right as a storm was blowing in. I wonder if that was coincidence? Nothing real big but the standard size rainbows are pretty decent fighters on the river. The water is still cold for this time of year.

Posted: 05 July 2009 at 09:06 | IP Logged

rob - beaver creek park sits up against the rez but doesn't enter it. i can't remember how much a tribal permit is, but i remember thinking that they weren't very expensive at all. the lake in the phtos above is managed by the fwp and there's a 7$/night fee for camping - no charge for day use. pretty reasonable.

looking like some good times on the missouri there!

Posted: 05 July 2009 at 15:30 | IP Logged

Nice photos mate.That is pretty country Tash.

Good memories to store away for the later years.

Have a good one,

Macca