Cousins Camping

I must apologize as I am the worst blogger ever!  It has been almost a month since my last post.  Has it been almost a month since my last fishing trip?  Yes.  But  have not blogged about that yet.  So, here goes...

For the Canada Day Long Weekend, we decided to have our annual Cousins Camping trip!  We typically go to Tower Manor Lodge on Rice Lake.  This year, however, we were unable to secure our regularsite, so we ended up going to a very nice campsite on - you guessed it - West Lake lol.  Yes, we ended up at West Lake, yet again.  For this year's trip, we opened it up to Musky and Pre-Cut's cousins since they are now family as well.  All in all, we had about a baker's dozen at our campsite, which was secluded and off to the side, bordered by woods on 3 sides.  This year, in addition to Mek Mek, Sk8r Boi, Sir, Pink, Musky and myself, we had 2 of my other cousins - Vanessa and Chet, and 4 of Musky's cousins - Hermione, Sk8rfan, Cheater and Kanye, as well as Knot'Yo.

After setting up our little tent city, Sir, Knot'Yo, Sk8r and myself went out for some evening bassing.  After finally getting our boat launched (the ramp at this park leaes something to be desired), we boat over to the
sand banks and begin casting.  In about 8 ft of water with sparse weeds, I am throwing a white and green swimbait.  The first fish, however, goes to Sir, on a spinnerbait.  However, that was all we would get at the first spot.  Moving on to a shallow (4') spot with heavier weed growth that tapered into deeper water, I switched to a small Daiwa GameVibe in silver and blue (lipless crank) and immediately put a pike and a bass in the boat.  These were significant fish as they were the first game fish caught on my custom finesse baitcasting rod.  I must admit that fighting the small fish with this rod was a blast.  After the action died again, we moved to our windblown cove.  The wind was blowing into this cove so weset ourselves adrift at the mouth of the cove, drifting into the cove.  Water depth ranged from 6-10' with heavy weed growth.  It was here that the fish began to turn on.  Fishing a mix of swimbaits, lipless cranks and Rage Tail Shads casted towards shore and retrieved jut above the weeds, I nailed around 10 bass.  Sir landed a number of fish on spinnerbaits and Sammy-style topwaters.  Knot'Yo landed his fish on Spinners and big, double bladed buzzbaits.  Where was Sk8r throught all of this you ask?  He was fishing hard, but had nothing to show for it except for some missed strikes.  I was really hoping that he would pop his custom rod's cherry, but its virginity remained intact.
The following morning, Sir could not get up to join me for some early morning fishing, but Knot'Yo was game.  So, we trolled out to emergent grass in 5-7' of water and began hitting the grass hard with topwater baits.  Knot'Yo landed the first on his trusty double bladed buzzbait.  Meanwhile, I landed the next 2 using the Rage Tail shad (it is a soft plastic bait with a wide tail that churns up water like a buzzbait when retrieved).  Knot'Yo landed the last fish before we moved on.  We found a calm shallow (4') bay with dense weeds (2' below the surface).  I caught another small fish on the GameVibe and then a nice chunky 2.5 lber (guesstimate) using a swimbait retrieved extremely slowly.  We did not catch any other fish before returning for breakfast. 
After eating, we picked up a rental pontoon and brought the cousins out for some hot, midday inner tubing and lounging on  the sand banks.  While the cousins lounged, Musky, Knot'Yo, Sir and I headed out to catch some dinner.  We head back over to the windy cove from the evening before and troll the shoreline leading into the cove.  I caught a couple of bass, again on the GameVibe, casting away from shore into deper water, before seeing something that was pretty awesome.  We trolled past a nuumber of garpike that looked to be spawning.  They were breaking the surface all around us and were all around the boat.  You could see these submarines cruising the shallows, not interested in the lures in the least.  It was quite an awesome sight for me.  We eventually got into the cove and caught a few more fish, on the same lres as the night before.  We ended up with enough fish for dinner and headed back in to begin cooking.
We did a fish fry and fed our baker's dozen with fresh, beer battered cajun fish and fries.  It was a fun day despite losing most of it to tubing.  We did not fish the sunday before heading out.  This was probably just as well since the night before, a thunder storm rolled in, right on top of us, and churned up the wate really good int he morning. 
As a side note; I hate racoons.  I understand that they are just doing what theydo, and we are encroaching on their habitat.  However, we had 2 racoon bastards that had no fear, and actually stole a bag of garbage that was literally 10 feet behind us while we were sitting around the fire.  I give the racoons mad props for having balls that big though.  But they would still go after garbage while I was standing staring them down.  Maybe I am not as tough as I think?