Page 24 - April2015-Catalyst

WHAT DO CHRISTIANS DO FOR FUN? -PART 2 -
By Joe Grimaud | Continued From Page 6
a narrow stream with swift water to where the camp was located. To get there Keith had to sit on the nose of the plane with a paddle to watch for rocks and help us avoid them in the shal- lowstream. Iwasveryconcernedastohowwe would moor the plane once we got to the camp, but to our surprise, they had scraped a wide boat ramp down to the stream and we were able to put the gear down and drive right up into a boat and trailer parking lot.
The next day the fun began as we got into the plane and headed back down stream to the lake. We were not disappointed as the fishing was as good as the year before. Since the canopy on the amphibian opened across the top, one of us would stand in the cockpit and fish while the other two would fish, standing on either wing.
Remember one of Bob’s main goals in wanting to travel there in the amphibian was to get to lakes that no one else could get to. There were lakesallovertheplace. Sowetookofffrom our base lake and headed north until we found an isolated lake with absolutely no roads leading into it. We sat down in the lake and found an area near the mouth of a small inlet and began our fishing. We had not been there more than an hour when I began to hear what sounded like a motor far off in the distance. As the sound drew closer we saw two fishermen emerge in a small boat from another stream. Just when we thought we had found a place where no other fishermen could get to, we came to realize there
were no such places. Fishermen can and will get to anyplace where they think there might be good fishing. How they got there we never knew.
The next day we decided to f ly back to the lake where we had the difficulty getting the boat up the ramp the year before. Once again, more good fishing, with the Walleye’s biting as fast as you could get a hook into the water.
What we did not realize, however, was that Bob was a bit heavier than Keith. And the wing he was fishing from was deeper in the water than Keith’s on the other wing. When we got ready to take off and fly back to the camp the spon - son on Bob’s side of the plane had filled with water, and I could not get up enough speed to getitoutofthewaterforthetakeoff. Wefound an area around the lake where it was sandy and beach like. I dropped the gear, and gunning the engine wide open, got the amphibian to drive up onto the beach. With the sponsons on both sides now completely out of the water we were able to drain the one that had filled up. The only thing was the sand was not hard at all and the wheels were sinking into it such that the plane would not go back into the water, even with the engine wide open. Here we were again 30 miles from nowhere in an airplane that would take off from the water but we could not get it to drive back into the water.
After commiserating a bit, and without a soul
24 CityLight.org
April 2015