Quite some time ago I loaded free recording software on my desktop computer and put together this parody of Ghost Riders for my fishing buddies. Feral Tweed added some electric mandolin. Sorry about the bass guitar, not really my thing. The photo is from a night jam with Denny Buttermore from the Down Yonder band. Feral is standing over the fire. I am playing my Craigslist Maple Ventura, a lawsuit guitar from the seventies, if you follow. Photo by Natch who usually adds some percussion. This was up at Pickerel Lake near Vanderbilt , MI. Dan and Jake, both sitting, are both very good guitarists but some nights you just like to stare at a good campfire.
It’s getting harder to gather people for what I have been calling trout camp so if I change the name maybe that will help. Most of us, excluding Natch, have pretty open schedules due to retirement, self-employment, and less responsibility. Seems like it would be easy to get folks together for a long weekend of trout fishing. As the person who organizes these things, it is a bit of a sting when things go south. In all fairness, the switch to the third weekend of September was unusual with two guys just unable to work it out and another caught in a time crunch.
Natch on the brutal walk out of Cornwall
Natch and I met up at Pickerel Lake for the weekend and did some serious trout fishing. The streams were low and clear and the days were hot so we tried to get out early morning. I cooked up an early breakfast in the Scamp trailer and we hit our favorite stretches like Cornwall Flats and Tin Bridge on the Pigeon, and the Valley on the Sturgeon. We did the best in the Valley.
I had just finished the stretch above the horse bridge and set a 15-inch male brown on the railing when I saw Natch walking up from downstream. I could see he had one hand behind his back so I was prepared when he swung around an 18-inch brown. To be clear, it was too early for the fall run of big browns on the Sturgeon but somehow Natch managed to find a very nice trout. He has a habit of doing that.
We did some exploring. We saw elk and deer and investigated a couple more pot-hole lakes that are supposed to hold trout. It is artificial lures only but maybe some fake leaf worms / Berkley power bait, might be workable. Could make a fun afternoon.
A couple months back Jake suggested an “art instrument” challenge. I spent some time thinking about what to do for that and built an electric guitar kit, a $79.00 Leo Jaymz Telecaster. I was inspired after finding a raw pine telecaster body locally that had knots in it. It reminded me of the “possibles” box (see earlier post on that). I painted up the pine body to match the artwork on the box. It was a tricky but fun build and after finishing it I thought it would be cool to plug it into the possibles box so I added a guitar plug to the box that’s connected to a battery-powered amp inside.
I played “Things Have Changed” by Bob Dylan and a few other oldies like “Uncle Charlie” off my Without a Hitch CD. I waited until the campground cleared out on Sunday afternoon. I think there’s a rule about no amplifiers in state forest campgrounds. And not everyone shares my strange taste in music.
Natch was apologetic about not having art instrument ready. No problem. He is fully employed and busier than the rest of us combined. I have no idea if Jake or Feral managed to get something going but no matter, it’s fun playing something I have invested time and energy into. I wasn’t even sure I would like a telecaster! So far I like how easy it is to bend notes on the almost flat neck.
We started a new tradition called October Camp which is a short weekend at the height of the fall color change. I’m not sure about any of the timing but tenting in October has a nice appeal. It’s the time of year when we guys with a red-green color problem get a glimpse of what we miss the rest of the year: spectacular colors. Reds and oranges popping like magic. Driving down a two-track a couple years back it seemed like I was driving through a forest fire minus the smoke and heat. If we remote camp, which is probable, I know there are some interesting vintage air rifles and plinking coming up also. I hope to get some photos and a good story for that.
With summer screaming by I was happy to see a text from Natch proposing a weekend camp at “burnt clutch,” our go-to spot for remote camping in the Pigeon River State Game Area. No trailers this time, just tents. A fast trip to get in some trout fishing. I pulled in around noon Friday and within two hours both Natch and Feral showed up. We blew through the balance of Friday somehow just talking, drinking beer, a short walk to the Cornwall access site to the Pigeon, a drive to Pickerel Lake, and a good campfire. Natch brought a tent you toss in the air and it sets itself up. We had a stray shower on Saturday morning and unfortunately, the waterproofing did not match the clever set-up technology so he ended up with a wet sleeping bag. Look for a cheap tent on marketplace in the Rockford area 🙂
We fished a stretch of the Pigeon that’s upstream of Tin Bridge. We expected lots of gravel bottom and shallow water and didn’t know what to expect for good bends or deep holes. We hadn’t fished the stretch before. It wasn’t long before we came to the beaver dam we discovered last fall (and I reported to the DNR). The elevation drop is just high enough to keep some migrating/spawning browns and rainbows from getting upstream (my opinion). The DNR guy I spoke with said he would contact some trappers about the beavers because if they open the dam the beavers would just block it up again. Doesn’t look like much has changed in the last ten months. The Pigeon River needs some help after the Song of the Morning fiasco.
Natch broke the camp record for the smallest trout. He thought he had a leaf caught on his lure. We didn’t check the length with a tape or the girth with a micrometer but there was no question about who now holds the record. Shortly after, I caught a trout closer to the old record. It was a beautiful morning to get out fishing, a little overcast, not too hot. I can’t remember the last time the three of us fished together but it was nice, lots of jokes, trading off the lead, getting our casting accuracy down.
Back at camp we had some sandwiches and did some target shooting with our pellet guns. Feral and I each brought a favorite pistol and we took turns trying out some vintage rifles Natch found at online auctions. Amazing 100-year-old technology. Both BB and pellet guns. There were some very creative engineers back then exploring ways to compress air and launch projectiles.
Feral with a Crossman Model 101, an early variant from the 1920’s
I didn’t bring a guitar but brought my mandolin figuring I would try a couple songs, and Feral, with more experience on a mandolin, would play a few songs too. That turned into one of the best jams we ever had. Natch provided rhythm on bongos and a tambourine. I did some Dylan songs and tried a bluegrass song I wrote a few years ago about being kind to your waitress. The highlights though were Pink Floyd’s Welcome to the Machine and Feral playing Down Under by Men at Work. The mandolin, an A-body style Eastman, really sounded good in the wild outdoors. Eastman makes guitars and mandolins. I’d like to play one of their guitars. May have to visit Elderly Instruments in Lansing for that.
We broke camp on Sunday morning and made plans for our fall trout camp in September. We have a couple challenges coming up for that. One is an “art instrument” challenge meaning whatever that means to each of us. Something to make music. I may do a video if we get some cool things happening. Another challenge is building an air pistol but I’m afraid I haven’t started on that or even know what is possible with my garage tools. A machine shop would be helpful. The other challenge mentioned early last spring is building a camp chair and that is another one I’ll need to make excuses for. After the possible box challenge, see earlier post, we are all game to get creative but time has a way of running out with life’s interruptions. No matter who brings what to trout camp next month, should be interesting.
I don’t know how Natch does it. Manager at a large firm. Teenage boys. Four properties to keep up. Air gun collector and re-builder. And he still finds time to steal away to a trout stream. He made the most of the holiday weekend by driving up to the Sturgeon River near Vanderbilt and fishing a stretch in “The Valley.” The water was high and clear and the sun was out. Not such great conditions for fishing. He caught a couple small ones and that could be expected, but coaxing a big one out from under the bank is another matter.
He said if I use the photos in a post go ahead and get creative with the writing so here goes: “When Natch saw how big the fish was he lost his nerve and handed me the pole. I was able to unsnap the net from his lanyard before he ran off, but must admit, I had a real battle to drag this in. His five-foot spinning rod and four pound test line required the kind of finesse you can only get from a half-century of catching lunker brown trout… so I was equipped mentally, even though my body has taken a beating from years of sitting at a desk job.”
Memorial Day was my only shot at trout fishing this week. I drove up to my favorite creek and the banks were overgrown like a tropical jungle. I found wader boot tracks and brush broken alongside the creek but with so many logs and trees down it was a miracle I didn’t punch holes in my waders. I could get in for small stretches but most of my casting was from the bank lobbing a Rapala between logs. I ran into a bait fisherman who said he had caught 4 or 5 six-inch browns and one decent one, about sixteen, that he let go. I caught a couple twelve-inchers and released them, regrettably. I should have kept those for dinner.
Busting through the jungle to get back out to the road was bad, but could have been worse. The temp was only about 60 degrees which must have freaked out the mosquitoes – I didn’t see one. And no ticks. I had sprayed a camo shirt with permethrin so I’m sure that helped.
I took my wife trout fishing on this creek right after we married. Her wader boots got stuck in some muck and mosquitoes carried her off. I never saw her on a trout stream after that. I’m still weighing the pros and cons. 🙂
I got a call from Natch on Wednesday afternoon saying he couldn’t take it any longer. He was going to cut out of work early and head up to our remote spot on the Pine River. Would I be interested in heading up tonight (rather than in the morning)? I asked if he was serious, always a concern, and he said yes. Fortunately, I had just returned from my Meijer trip for groceries so nothing was stopping me. We met at trout camp around 7:00 pm.
We had an art challenge this spring – make a smoking pipe or a walking stick. Natch came through again with a killer pipe reminiscent of North American Indian tribes, and a polished walking stick/cane with a knob handle that was face-like. I combined a walking stick and a pipe with the idea it would resemble half bone and half wood. At the very top a section turns sideways to access the bowl. When closed it traps the mixture so it won’t fall out.
Luther’s walking stick /pipe
While mushroom hunting Jake came across a vintage lawn chair with most of the webbing gone – but has nice metalwork. I don’t know about having a camp chair challenge, we talked about it, but Jake rebuilding that chair with new webbing sounds interesting. Note how the legs taper down to a quarter inch. Impressive metal forming – not sure how they accomplished that.
Natch has been on a mission to buy some vintage air pistols and he found some real classics. A couple Diana model 5s, a Webly Tempest and a Hurricane, a model 137 Benjamin Franklin (like mine), various CO2 pistols and everyone’s favorite: a pre-war Hubertus with an art deco design and a simple mechanical action that has inspired Feral and Jake to consider building one in their machine shops. (another T.C. challenge?)
Natch with his Chronograph
Feral had his Hy-Score and a vintage Benjamin Franklin BB rifle I hadn’t seen before. That was another group favorite. It’s a multi-pump with a rod that pulls out below the barrel. The finish is worn down to brass in places. Very nice. Jake had his pre-war Webly Mark 1, and I had the rebuilt Diana model 6 (see earlier post) along with a vintage Gamo Falcon from the 70s. Natch had a chronograph so we could check pellet speeds. We set beer cans on stumps turned them into colanders.
Benjamin Franklin BB GunJake with his Webly and Feral with the Hubertus
I brought my maple-bodied Ventura camp guitar and also a new/used Cajon box drum I found on marketplace. I thought it might add some steady bass rhythm. Feral played that. I am thinking about doing some Dune movie illustrations on the Cajon – call it the Dune thumper.
I did a few songs, mostly old Cat Stevens from his Tea for the Tillerman album. Feral played Hold On by Tom Waits and vowed to start looking for another acoustic guitar. Guitars, some classic, seem to go in and out of his life with regularity. I was hoping Natch would pick up on the cajon but I guess he wanted to give Feral some room to experiment.
Did we fish? The Pine River was running high and stained which is just what you hope for when the weather is sunny and clear and/or partly cloudy. It rained twice, at night, and the camp dried out quick both times. Wading was tricky so a lot of casting from the bank except where you knew the stream was shallow. No one caught anything over fifteen inches but everyone caught and saw nice fish. We had our customary trout dinner with baked beans on Saturday night.
Feral casting / Jakes brown trout
One morning, on the way to a fishing spot, I had an owl swoop in front of my car and land in a nearby tree. I pointed my phone camera out the windshield and caught that one. Later one swooped through camp right next to me and landed on tree over the ridge in camp. Natch took a photo but it’s hard to see in the branches. The strange thing was it happened when Natch and I were commenting on the songbirds making such a loud din it seemed unnatural.
Morning Owl
The second night it rained, on Saturday night, we didn’t notice anything different about the stream on Sunday but by Monday the stream turned muddy. Feral and Jake had to pack up and go but Natch and I fished an upper stretch of the Pine hoping the mud had cleared away upstream. It didn’t, but we managed to get in the stream and see fish, though we went fishless. The sun was out and the water was like chocolate milk. We could see our Rapalas flash below the surface.
Morel mushrooms were a bust. We can usually get enough for a skillet snack from our go-to place but two trips made it clear we were too late. That was confirmed at the Bristol Store. On the plus side, Natch and I tried out our walking sticks and I have to say: I will always be using one from here on out. It was nice for crossing over logs and just leaning against while scanning the ground for mushrooms. I didn’t light the hidden bowl but maybe I’ll try that sometime. I’m on a no-beer, no-smoking diet until I can get a mild heart problem figured out. I drank Corona NAs with limes which was almost enough to convince me I was knocking down real beer. Natch took a couple photos of a Blue Racer snake which seems to be getting more and more rare. They are not poisonous but have a painful bite so best to leave them alone.
Natch and I packed up Tuesday morning. I had a mishap on the way home. I took 131 south and took the Lansing exit north of GR and as I was rounding the ramp to I96 a tire blew out on the Scamp trailer. There was nowhere to go and very little room. I pulled onto the shoulder and changed the tire but my spare just didn’t have enough air. Lesson learned – don’t just feel the tire through the cover and guess it’s okay – pull the cover and check the actual pressure. I had to leave the Scamp on the expressway, run to the next exit and fill the tire, go back past the camper and turn around, hook up the trailer, and put on the spare. It was nerve-racking. Every time a big semi went past the trailer it would shake and I was afraid it would blow right off the jack. Online I found a new set of radials with a D load rating (more plys) and a speed rating of 81mph. And new rims. Even though I went no more than a hundred yards the rim was wrecked.
We went to breakfast in Tustin one morning and stopped at an antique shop on Mainstreet. I heard Jake laughing and he pointed to this. I was tempted to buy it out of curiosity. Was the writing as funny as the illustration?
I never listen to my best advice. At a gun auction last Friday I started bidding on an air pistol. My brain said don’t bid over 75 dollars on a pistol that may or not work. There was no way to test the various air pistols before buying. They had a couple Webly Tempests, a variety of CO2 pistols including a couple modern ones, and a few BB guns. I bid on a Webly and got out early enough that Natch jumped in and got it for $140.
The pistol that really caught my eye was an RSW Model 6, made in Germany. Looked to be in great shape. A big gun. Probably 16 inches long. It has two pistons that expand 180 degrees from each other to exhaust air, with this result – it has no recoil. Ahead of it’s time. This one was made in 1980.
I bid, I won, I got it home, cocked it, put in a pellet, pulled the trigger, and the pellet got stuck in the barrel. The seals were toast. I paid about what Natch paid for his Webly.
This is interesting. The general consensus online is Model 6’s are expensive to have repaired and the project is so daunting that most people stick them in a drawer and forget about them.
So that is the pistol, in pieces, on the tabletop in the main photo. I stripped it down far enough to get the pistons out. The rear one looked good, the seal on the front piston had disintegrated. New seals are on their way from Air Rifle Headquarters (.com). I found some pretty good instructions online but the real test is reassembly. How to get the pistons, springs, and pinion gears back into the cylinder. I’ll post a photo after I get it back together and have it working.
The painting was done for the fichigan “white chair” art challenge back in 2020.
Natch bought two pistols and they both worked.
So it’s back together. A very tricky project adding new seals. I fired it a few times and it shoots but I have no way of knowing how many feet per second. Natch bought a chronograph and will bring it to trout camp in early May. If it is shooting in the 350 range I will be very happy. If it is 200 fps I will need to rethink some of my decisions during the rebuild. I had to take a little off the leading edge of the front piston seal to get it in the cylinder. The reassembly of the springs went well with the caveat that the rear piston may engage the rear cap before the front piston (which propels the pellet) smacks the front wall of the cylinder. I know that may not make sense but it is key to the recoilless feature of the gun. That said, I don’t feel recoil… so I may be okay. Here is a cut-away screen capture from a YouTube video available online if you search for “How it works Diana Model 6 Giss.” You can see how the front piston and seal drive air to the barrel. The rear piston is basically a dummy piston to make the gun recoilless.
Spring trout camp coming soon. Lots of vintage pistols, a trout stream that produces nice size browns, and a special art challenge that I better get started on.
Quick update: Taking a little off the front edge of the piston seal was a problem – It only shot 225 fps (feet per second) which is not good. I ordered more seals and installed them without modification. Now the pistol is shooting 275 fps, still not good. I expect the seals to break in but this pistol should be shooting 100 fps faster. I used Super Lube silicone oil, 5000 cSt, on the seals and piston body and suspect a lower viscosity oil like Pellgun oil may have worked better. I’ll run a couple hundred pellets through it and re-check with a chronograph. Fingers crossed.
I went to an auction in SW Michigan and found a vintage American-made pellet pistol and won the bid. It’s a Hy-Score model 802B in .177 caliber. It shoots pellets the size of BBs. It came with the original box, or what was left of the box, which adds more collector value. I re-glued the box and hinged the lid, so it looks good and holds the pistol. Online these sell for $200 and up, mostly up, so my $40 win was a shock. It was the first time I had bid at a live auction so it was exciting and nerve-racking, not helped by my bad hearing. I kept waving my auction number every time the auctioneer said a new number and he finally said, “I have your bid.” Suddenly it stopped and I won. There were actually three pistols in the bid, with the high bid picking their choice of the three. I took the Hy-Score. The other pistols were not vintage, possibly CO2.
This is my second vintage air pistol. I found a Benjamin Franklin model 137 at an estate sale last year and bought that for 40 dollars also. That’s another story. I stood at a gate on a country road in the winter for an hour with twenty-five or thirty people, waiting for someone to open the gate for the sale. There were all kinds of things for sale, including a vintage 60’s Corvette. As soon as the gate opened I literally ran up the long drive to make sure I got to the tables first. I found the Benjamin and checked out. When I was running up the drive I could hear the other people laughing at me. Generally, I care too much about what people think of me, but in this case, I figured what the heck, I’ll get what I’m after. I could tell from the estate sale photos online the Benjamin was in very good condition.
Here’s a photo of the Benjamin (with the white grips). Also Feral’s Hy-Score model 800 in .22 caliber, and Jake’s pre-WW2 Webly. This photo was taken last fall at trout camp. The wood boxes are part of the “possibles box” challenge. See the earlier post for details.
Natch, my main fishing buddy, was intrigued by the vintage pistols and is on a mission to find one. He’s been searching, and bidding online, but it is hard to find a real bargain. That may take stumbling on one at a garage or estate sale. There are online deals out there – but it may take a good bidding strategy and patience. Natch has both.
So why are these pistols cool? It’s the air. How do you compress enough air to send a tiny projectile out of a muzzle at 300+ foot per second? The engineering is spectacular, and it has been going on for a hundred years. There is so much to learn and so much fun information online, in particular, youtube videos showing the vast array of makers and models, how to repair them, and side-by-side shooting comparisons. Here’s a closeup of the pellets.
In Jakes’s words: Luth, I’ve been meaning to write you about deer season. I got a nice five-point. Maybe it’s a four-point. Not sure how long a tine has to be to count. I took my photo from the correct angle though. The antlers look remarkably huge. It was a good year for me. I didn’t get a deer the last few years so I’m glad to have one in the freezer this year. It has already been in some tasty meals.
There were fewer hunters in the woods this year. It seems to be a continuing trend. Sad to see kids not taking it up but it does make for nice conditions in the woods for Feral and I. We have lots of land to wander around. We like to still hunt so it’s nice having miles of foot paths and deer trails to stalk through. I unfortunately wasn’t able to walk as much this year and sat frequently. I couldn’t seem to find a decent pair of boots and was wearing a St. Vincent’s pair that were too big for me. Ended up screwing up my knee and limping all season. I’m just now almost back to normal.
The hunting was good. Plenty of buck sign all over the areas where Feral and I hunt. Saw deer almost every day. The big bucks would not come out though. Each year I try to get to know the big bucks that lurk in the swamps and follow their tracks. I look for where they bed and how they move. I always run out of time though. If I had one or two more days in the season I think I could have got a monster. But at the end of the last day of the hunt, as the sun is setting, and I’m heading back to the truck I’m glad to see those big fresh tracks still crossing my path. Glad he outsmarted me again and can rest easy until next year. He earned it.
Feral following tracks
Of particular note this season – the increase of coyote tracks. They seem to thrive in this area and I wonder sometimes if they don’t move the deer away. Another new development this year was the copious bear sign. Feral has a good story of walking up on a bear and coyotes. Perhaps fighting. He was treated to sounds that have terrified campers and sportsmen for generations. I asked him if he got close enough to see the ruckus but he felt satisfied just being within earshot. Perhaps he didn’t want a “this happened to me” story. I’m not sure if I would have ventured closer for a picture. I like to think I would. I didn’t hear what he heard though. I missed only two days of hunting throughout the regular and muzzleloading firearms seasons. Much to do with bad luck regarding my guns. I was shamefully unprepared. I did not finish making new sights for my rifle in time for the season and my replacement weapon was also mechanically unfit for the hunt. So I borrowed guns from Feral, a collector, for both seasons. Next year I will be ready.
When the sun comes out in Michigan, no matter the time of year, camping sounds good. Highs in the mid-forties, low thirties at night, and somehow a one-nighter up by the Pigeon River was workable. Natch asked and I waffled, admittedly, until I saw the sunny forecast. If the sun’s out… go for it.
Natch and Jake bundled up for the cold
Natch, Jake, and I dispersed camped up at Grass Lake on Saturday Night. We met around noon. We wanted to camp at “Burnt Clutch,” our normal late-season spot, but it was taken. A large party of bird hunters were camped there. There are a couple spots along Grass Lake, a little further up the trail, and we managed to get a spot. I was surprised to see it open because we often see people there.
Feral stopped by to pick up a deer rifle I don’t use, a gift from my stepdad Ken. I gave him the rifle but told him the box of shells would be seventy dollars 🙂 Feral didn’t camp, just drove over for the rifle. I thought of making a joke about “the real men are camping” but then thought I might have had to add later: “The smart one stayed home.”
Luther and Jake suit up
We fished the Pigeon River. Two spots. Last fall Natch and I found new access upstream of Tin Bridge. There’s a locked DNR gate on the main two-track so we parked there and walked in. It opens to a huge field and a footpath leads through it and down through woods to the river. The Pigeon is mostly sand in that stretch, hardly any gravel – which was surprising. A half mile or so upstream it turns to mostly gravel, and then back to mostly sand. Fishing was tough. Natch saw a nice rainbow trout over twenty, and Jake saw a smaller brown trout. We didn’t fish long because there wasn’t much trout cover.
Jake below the Beaver damLuther above the Beaver DamThe field by the new stretch of the PigeonA sketch done later…
We decided to hit the Cornwall stretch which often produces large browns and rainbows. You can’t keep the browns this time of year but you can keep a rainbow.
Natch takes the lead on the Cornwall stretch
No luck on the Cornwall stretch either so we exited at our normal get-out spot and went back to camp. I brought some “Better Cheddar” sausages and we cooked them over the campfire. Warm food helped. It was so cold. Not so noticeable when the sun was out, but come nightfall it was “see how close you can get to the campfire and not burn your shins.”
The new spot on Grass Lake was great. There was a stone circle fire pit and lots of room for tents, even trailers. The lake was spectacular in the setting sun. If we camp this late next year I’ll seriously think about bringing the scamp trailer. I slept okay in my small tent but the ground was hard and it was tricky staying warm. I crawled into my sleeping bag and put a quilt and a Carhart coat over me. It was raining in the morning. I packed up early, in the dark. My fingers froze by the time I was loaded up. I cranked up the heater in the 4runner and took off. Natch and Jake were sleeping in their trucks. I said goodbye but didn’t get an answer from either one. I felt bad about leaving but it’s not like we would have hung out in the freezing rain. Later, by text, they said they had a great time.
Next project: It’s a long time till the next trout season opener and Natch suggested we each make a peace pipe to smoke a little mixture. I like that as an art challenge. He has some distant Cherokee DNA and may have been inspired by the Cherokee peace pipe illustration on one side of my possibles box. (see earlier post). We have added a hiking stick as an optional project for non-smokers in the group. Same rules: make it functional, creative, and unique. Show and tell at spring trout camp.
Fichigan 