This year’s crew was disappointed to learn that neither Tom nor Brian would be joining us, though the hidden joy was that it gave the rest of us a chance to nail the big ones for a change.

We were happy to have a new addition to the team – Marty’s father in law Ed, who even brought his own whoop ass fishing boat which made him an instant hit!

This was the first fishing trip in perhaps eight or ten years in which all the Olson boys were present, even the Martymonster from Ottawa, who took a couple days off from cooking the books at the Bank of Canada to come and have some fun for a change.  Thankfully he’s the only one who remembered a camera so all photos here are to his credit.

We went back to our original trip days of Thursday to Sunday which was woefully inadequate compared to last year where we added the bonus day.  Since most of the old guys are either retired or retiring soon I suspect that extra day might be back next year and the rest of us working bozos will just have to skip out or call in shtick.

So how was the fishing?  Well, we decided to have a contest one day where we tracked the total number of catches per boat per fisherman to evaluate who the true champions were.  The grand total for the day was 183 fish overall (90% lake trout) which was an average of 23 fish per man.  The boat comprised of Skinner, Kris, Marty, Curtis were cheated out of the grand prize because they were too honest.  The boat team of Peter and Ed were the biggest liars and stole the victory.  The Weenie boat (Don and Colby), if I recall correctly came in last, probably an honesty problem there too.

The weather was far from perfect, but since we had nothing else to do besides fish and drink beer, it was perfectly fine.  We didn’t catch as many big pike this year (again, Tom and Brian skipped out…their fault), but the overall size of the lakers was larger than previous years.

We finished the trip off nicely with a boat to boat projectile war on our last run across Kelly Lake.  Peter, without provocation, initiated the hostilities by lobbing a beer can water bomb and landing it right in our boat.  Unfortunately for Peter and Ed, we were carrying the lunch cooler so we retaliated with volley of boiled eggs and tube steaks.  Next to go were the soggy water bread bombs, one which capped Pedro on the noggin.  Ed and Peter returned fire with a few more projectiles, some of which hit the mark, but the shot of the day was when Curtis hurled a beer can water bomb and squared Ed directly in the crackers.  Fishin can indeed be dangerous at times, though one must always must keep in mind that it’s never a good idea to initiate war with a faster and better provisioned boat with expert marksmen aboard.

Only one more year to go until the next trip…..

Click for

This years crew

Trout stringer

Colby, your ass is on fire!

Bite my finger

Long and lean

Pike of the day

How to head grab a pike

It's only fake blood

11 PM!

The economist shows us his teeth.

Fresh retiree!