Mid Michigan Outdoors

    I am writing this for my son Casey who was not able to join us this year to get together with his older brother and my old school buddies. This would have been Caseys first trip to our annual outing and he was truly looking forward to it. Instead, he is in the middle of Marine Boot Camp in San Diego, California. I look so forward to his letters and am so happy to hear from him. I just received 2 letters today. Thanks Casey. I hope he, and anyone else who reads this appreciates it for what it is, and understands this is why I live where I do, and love the family and friends I have. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful family, my lovely wife Dawn, and my three great sons, Matthew, Casey and Bryan. And to have such close friends for so many years is simply amazing, they are more like my brothers than my friends.

    Hang in there Casey, and hopefully you will join us next year.

    Semper Fi little buddy.

    Pulling into my son Matthews drive, my excitement level was really on the rise. My mind carried me back to a day 12 years ago when I was feeling the very same.

You see, 12 years ago I sent out invitations to several of my old school buddies to join me for a day of fishing on Wakeley Lake near Grayling, Michigan. Only 4 others were able to make it for our Saturday of fishing but we had such a great time it has become an annual event known as the Big Ass Bass Invitational.

    Over the years we have had as many as 14 friends show up, and every year has been as great as the first, although now several of us will go out Friday afternoon or evening and set up camp to stay until Sunday. The fishing is still only a Saturday event, giving us the remainder of the time for just sitting around and having a lot of good, fun, conversation.

    Bringing my mind back to the present, we loaded Matthews things and squeezed his little brother Bryan into the back seat. I felt bad for Bryan as he was stuffed between coolers, fishing poles, a cart for canoe transport, and whatever else would not fit in the trunk. His ride must have been terribly long because, though I hate to admit it, most of the conversation over the one hour ride to Grayling was between Matt and I, and was about the good times to be had over the next couple days. Bryan is only 12 and he knows it will be a few years yet before he can come along. I must give Bryan credit as he is a trooper and wished us both good luck as we dropped him off at his grandparents for the weekend.

    A short drive across Grayling landed Matthew and I at my long time friend and fishing buddy Luke Petroskeys’ house, where he already had one canoe and his necessary “stuff” loaded. Luke considered taking his “Green Box” full of the odd necessities that an unseasoned rookie might not think of such as, paper towel, utensils, paper towel, seasonings, paper towel. I am sure anyone who was there will understand that little one. For Luke to take his “Green Box” would sort have been stealing Mikes thunder, as it has been somewhat of a ritual for Mike to bring his “ Green Box”. Matt and I strapped Lukes other canoe to the roof of my Taurus and headed to the lake. Along the way we ran into a bit of rain but it was not enough for us to consider not going, and before we knew it we had both pulled into the parking lot at Wakeley Lake.

    Wakeley Lake is a national foot travel area so there are no vehicles allowed to the lake, which is about a half mile from the parking lot. Any boats, canoes, kayaks, and gear must be carried, pushed, or pulled to the lake. Over the past 25 years or so, since the property became public, we have figured out some unique ways to transport our gear to the lake with as little effort as possible. Back in the day we may have carried a canoe to the lake but now that we are all in our mid 40s, except for my son Matt, it is a lot easier to put our wisdom to use and save our backs, so carts are now used regularly. Matt, Luke and I pushed our loaded canoes and an extra cart of gear to the lake, where after some long minutes of trying to decide whether or not to use a different site, we settled on our usual spot.

    Camp Big Ass Bass has become an amazing camp over the years. We have used the same site almost every year and have figured out just how to set it up. With the tents at the up hill edge of the camp clearing, and our picnic tables at the down hill side, we have the fire pit stationed nicely in between and can use big tarps along the trees at the down hill side of camp to keep the tables and cooking items dry and out of the wind. As Matthew, Luke and I were finishing our set up another one of the guys arrived. Matt Keir was one class ahead of Luke and I in school and has known my son Matthew his entire life. Matt has attended almost all of the Big Ass Bass Invitationals and is always a welcome sight, especially since I forgot a tent and was hoping he would have room for one more in his. Matt, as always, was a great friend and said no problem while I helped him set up his tent.

    It was not long after Matt arrived when Mike Petrie, John Solmonson, and Jim Piper showed up. Mike, John, and Jim were in the same class as Luke and I and have spent many of hours on the water and in the woods together over the past 33 years. This was the first year for John, at the Big Ass Bass Invitational, so I was sure he was in for a good time and would be ready to come back again. After friendly greetings John, Mike and Jim placed their tents and unpacked necessary items, then helped in finishing up camp. Once the final poles were up, camp was officially complete and dinner would soon be on the grills.

    Dinner, or just food in general, is something that we never have a shortage of at camp, and our camp food is not just any camp food, oh no, we eat good.

Camp Menu

Friday dinner

Beef loin steaks grilled with marinade and fresh mushrooms and peppers

Shrimp and zuccini shish kabobs in a marinade with onions and fresh picked peppers

Saturday breakfast

Breakfast burritos with homemade venison sausage, onions, potatoes, cheese and eggs

Dawns homemade blueberry/pineapple bread (thanks to my wonderful wife)

Orange Juice

Fresh Brewed Kona Coffee

(sorry no pictures of breakfast)

Saturday lunch

Beef brats

Stadium brats

Cheddar brats

Potatoe salad

Saturday dinner

Pork loin, grilled over open flame

Fresh corn on the cob, grilled/roasted

That is only our meal menu. The snacks and other goodies are just about endless, so it is great that we never go hungry. Another great thing is that everyone pitches in and helps with the meals. Whether it is cooking, serving, or cleaning up dishes, it all gets done while having a great time. After eating and clean up it was time for a few games of washers and some good ole story telling.

TO BE CONTINUED......

    Mikes adventure on one of his last business trips came up as he told of looking out the window of the twin prop plane he was flying in and seeing the propellor on his side not spinning. Now that one sentence alone can create a good tale in itself, but to hear it told and animated by Mike is an adventure. The night when Luke sprayed himself with fish scent because he mistook it for bug spray was good for some laughs. And of course reliving the moments of past Big Ass Bass Invitational weekends. As the night grew later the tales turned to possible fishing strategies before we all began to settle down and crawl into our sleeping bags to await the mornings meal and Saturdays big day of fishing.

    Saturday began with a big batch of fresh cooked breakfast burritos and coffee along with some fresh baked pineapple / blueberry bread from my wonderful wife, and more coffee brought by our late arrival Mark Jacobs. A few shakes of the head to clear out the cob webs from Friday night was a great feeling. We then loaded up our canoes with fishing gear and drinks for the morning and pushed them to the lake. Of course leave it to Mark and I to liven up the morning with a slip of the canoe off our cart and me almost landing in the mud . We all had a good laugh at that one. Then, with a check of the watch, we decided start time would be 9:15 am and we would break for lunch at 12:30. At exactly 9:15 Mike and John blew a horn and the fishing was on.

    Mark was my boat partner and that was alright by me, it really does not matter to anyone who we fish with, as we are all experienced fishermen, any of the others would be great to have in the boat. In fact over the past 12 years I have had all of them as a partner at least once, with the exception of John who fished with Mike on this first year. We wished each other good luck and 4 canoes headed in 4 directions toward what we each hoped would be the hot spot for the morning.

    The mornings fishing started out quite eventless for Mark and I. Not much for bites, several switches of lures and what seemed like hours went by before Mark finally put a decent bass in the boat. Well that at least put one of us on the board and got the skunk out of the boat. A short time later I put a decent 12 incher in the boat so I at least had one, even if it was a little one. Now when I say put in the boat I simply mean landed and measured, then immediately released due to the fact that Wakeley Lake is a catch and release lake only. There is also no live bait allowed on the lake and no motors of any kind. My hopes of several in the 17 - 20 inch range were not to be, as small fish would be all I would catch. I did not put one fish in the boat over 15 inches. Mark on the other hand was well on his way to a great days catch as he reeled in his second fish, a nice fat 15 inch largemouth bass. By lunch break Mark had 6 fish in the boat with 2 of them over 15 inches. How the others were doing we were not exactly sure.

    We knew Matt and Luke had a few fish because we saw them land a couple while we were fishing just a short ways from them. It appeared that they did not have any real big fish. Mark and I enjoyed the view of a great rainbow that hung over both Luke and Matts’ canoe, and Mike and Johns canoe . We heard from Mike that he had a 23+ inch pike, which held out to take top pike honors at the end of the day, but their bass count was pretty low. I was holding onto the big blue gill as far as I knew with a 9 ½ incher, but we had yet to see or talk to my son Matthew and Jim. Another honk of the airhorn sounded our 12:30 lunch break. Fishing stopped and we all made our way toward shore.

    Once at the landing we heard that Jim also had a 9 ½ inch blue gill so he and I were tied at that point, but the big story of the morning was my son Matt. This is only Matts second year and so far he has done well. Last year he actually had the biggest fish and the top 5 bass total, so as far as bass go he was the new master, and it was looking like he might be well on the way to doing it again. His first four fish of the day had only one under 14 inches with one 19 inch hog in the mix. As Matthews father, I could not help but silently hope for him to do even better during the afternoon and put a whoopin on everyone, including me. Even with his great catch Matt would not take home sole honors of Big Ass Bass Master do to the fact that this year I switched it up a bit and decided to have it a team event for the top 5 bass. The catch was no one knew who their team mate would be until the end of the tournament and that would be decided by the numbers we all drew at breakfast. Matching numbers, from two sets of 1 - 4, would be combining to pick out their top 5 fish between both catches. The morning was a success in that everyone caught at least one fish and was ready to head back out after lunch.

    My afternoon went about as well as the morning as far as fishing was concerned. A lot of fish, but nothing of any real size. Marks afternoon started well with a few quick fish in the 12 and 13 inch range, but the real excitement came when he set the hook on his 4th fish of the afternoon. His pole doubled over instantly as he set the hook on a big bass. The fish made a leap as if just to show Mark what he was dealing with. As Mark fumbled around trying to keep track of the fish on his line and get his other rig out of the way, the bass dove under a stump. Things were not looking good for Mark but he held steady and managed to land the 20 inch largemouth. What a great catch and a tough one it would be to beat for big bass honors. Before I knew it the 6:00 horn sounded from Mikes boat, signalling the end of the tournament. Now it was just a matter of going to shore and seeing what everyone else had done, and, finding out who our partners were for a chance at the top 5 bass.

    Well Mikes 23 ½ inch pike held on to take the big pike win. Jim and I had our thought s of sharing the big blue gill win until Matt Keir told of his fat 9 ½ incher. Of course Marks 20 inch largemouth took top honors as big bass and the surprise team of Matt Keir and my son Matt combined to take the top 5 bass win with 5 bass that measured 90 inches. The funny thing is that later Jim and Matthew told me that several of Matthews fish may have been longer than what were written because Matthew was measuring them wrong by using the upper jaw and open tail rather than the lower jaw with a closed tail. The difference in jaws alone can add as much as ½ inch, and the tail can be from 1/8 to ½ inch longer when pinched together. If Matthew had measured all his fish properly he might just have had the big bass also, but he really did not care. We just go to have fun and do a little fishing. A little friendly competition, yes, but nothing serious. Congratulations went around with some chit chat about techniques and baits before we pulled our boats and gear back up to camp and prepared for another great meal and tales by the camp fire.

    While Matt and Mike gathered up some wood from the area for a fire Jim and Luke ran to a friends house to acquire some good campfire wood to get us through the night. I met Jim and Luke up at the parking area with my cart and Johns bike to help them bring the load of wood back to camp. In the meantime, the others had a good fire started and were just waiting for the start of dinner.

    It has been a tradition to have Pork loin for dinner after the tournament and this year we stayed true to our tradition. While one whole loin and 3, 2 inch thick loin chops, were put on the tripod grill, 2 dozen ears of corn were removed from the water they had been soaking in and placed along the fire ring to begin cooking. As the corn finished cooking we just could not wait for the loin and we all helped ourselves to a couple ears of fresh roasted corn on the cob while we waited for the loin to finish. Now most people would agree that corn on the cob is a wonderful vegetable, but unless you have had it by the lake, roasted by an open fire, with a bunch of friends, you are missing out. And with that said, the loin finished up and was brought to the table.

    Jim properly let the loin rest for several minutes before putting the knife to it. We all began to gather around the platter of loin just waiting for that first cut, those sweet juices to flow on the platter, mixing with the special rub, to create an amazing dipping juice right before our eyes. As Jim began to slice the loin, hands and fingers came from every angle to sample a piece. There truly is nothing like open wood fire grilled pork loin, piping hot off the grill, dipped in its own juice and eaten with the fingers. Did we all have a little fish slime still on our hands? Probably. Did that matter? Definitely not.

    Between the corn appetizer and loin entree we were all stuffed to the “gills” in no time and ready for some relaxation time.

    As we all began to unwind, the stories started to flow like an unobstructed river. Luke tells of being a chaperone on the 8th grade canoe trip and taking one for the team, as he was the only caught, or “singled out” as he put it, by coach Ferguson for hanging out at the girls camp. Ole “swisher sweet” Petroskey comes through again.

Mike talks of a day when he and a friend are going to the tallest building in South East Asia, but they can not find it. They do however run into a drunk Korean stumbling out of a bar so they decide that would be a good place to go and chill out. Good choice “shotgun”. How about the blue Monte. The Great White Buffalo. If you want to know the rest of this one you will have to get with Mike.

    How about the racing canoe that was broke in half by John and another of our class mates while floating down river. A bolt from an old bridge piling put a hole in the cedar strip canoe and before they knew it she was sunk and split in half. The front of the canoe and half of Johns things slowly made their way down river while John and Grant had to ride on coolers in another canoe for the rest of the trip.

    Lukes new nickname “chili” leads him into a conversation on advertising and product recognition. Why? Who knows! But he does have the courtesy to let us in on his own motto for the Comfort Centers. You will have to get with him if you want to know more.

Then it is the Ozfest which Jim attended. 5 years worth of heavy metal in one day was almost more than he could handle. Then he catches a drumstick along with two other people in the crowd but hangs on enough to end up with it. Although not without losing his Harley hat for a short time and being pushed into the mosh pit.

Tales like these went on long into the night until our ears were worn . Sunday morning came all to early.

    The sun rose over the lake Sunday and greeted us with a clear sky and chilly morning. A bit of coffee and some cheese danish was enough to get some energy and tear down camp. We always hate to see it end but are equally glad it is over for a year. It might not seem like it,but a weekend at the Big Ass Bass Invitational can take a lot out of a bunch of guys in their mid 40s.

Am I glad I went?

Absolutely!

Did I have a good time?

The best!

Will I do it next year?

Most definitely!

Thanks guys,

Frank “no longer the Big Ass Bass Master” Krajenka

P.S.

We missed ya Stan.