Coastal Cruising in a Pathfinder: Side tracked

This blog is supposed to be about the original building of my John Welsford Pathfinder and the trips I make after. Well today I'm running a little off track. I picked up a 16ft cedar strip canoe 12 or so years ago and have done a fair bit of camping and fishing with it, but I never had much of a chance to have it on the water since I moved back to Newfoundland some 9 years ago. Anyhow with my buddy Bill back in Newfoundland and eager to get back to nature, it made for a good excuse to take the canoe out for a day of fishing and a "boil up".

We loaded up the car and canoe on the rack at 6:30am on A Saturday morning. The goal was to catch one fish and not get eaten by the flies. The pond I scouted on the map was only about a 15 minute ride from the house, so even if things got real bad with the flies or if it rained, we would be home in no time. It may be close to home, but once you paddle from the shore, all civilization evaporates. Very quiet, peaceful and... no flies! I won't complain but was mystified to why there were none. It might have been due to the cool weather but I've been eaten in cooler weather than this. but I won't dwell on it, it was a fine morning and about to get much better.

We paddled across the pond trolling as we drifted, getting a bite here and there. I would paddle over to areas where I see the trout jumping and Bill would cast. Sure enough in a short time there were fish in the canoe.

In short order we had conjured up enough fish for a nice meal. bill caught the most and the largest trout of the morning. If nothing else this was a successful day. We were not prepared for such success, I had left the salt, pepper, and flour as well as other nice fish cooking items back at the house. We'll have to improvise. I got my little one burner stove going and cooked our bacon and eggs for breakfast, and got a kettle of water on the boil on the open fire near the beach.

But how to cook the fish... Bacon grease! This is my stomach not yours. With a sizzle and splash we had a fish fry in progress. And the smell, heavenly.

The fire of course was leftover lumber from the boat build from a year ago, I'm still burning scraps. Besides, nothing in this area would burn on this day, not after the rains that we have had. A cup of tea to chase it all down, this was one of those trips not soon forgotten, quickly planned and perfectly executed, this don't happen like this all the time.