Bear River Reservoir - late report

It took a while to upload the 400+ pictures from our summer training camp that took place last weekend, but I'm finally done.  No great rush...it's not like I actually caught anything... 

We left early-ish Friday morning, hoping to miss most of the traffic.  Sadly, the traffic gods on I205 had other plans for us.



Eventually the traffic cleared though, and promises of a fine weekend started to emerge.



After what seemed like an eternity we arrived at the Bear Group Camp.  In the many years that I've been running our karate club's annual gasshuku (summer training), this group site is by far the nicest we've stayed at overall.  I lucked out too, when I chose the Junco site; out of the four available sites it had the best view, good places to lay the tents, and a great cooking & dining area.  The only complaint voiced over the weekend was that three bear boxes weren't enough for a site that holds 25 people, but we made due.  Highly recommended if you're headed up to Bear River with a handful of people.




Friday afternoon was spent setting up camp, with a short run down to the lake to see if we could find an area for the weekend training sessions.



The search came up with nothing; the lakeside was too rocky and steep, even for my tough karate students.    So it was decided that we'd train in the campsite in a large open area near the cooking grill.  Saturday morning arrived, along with a five unfortunate souls who couldn't find the campground in the dark and spent the night sleeping in their cars.  I told the dummies to leave early...  After a short breakfast I began the morning training session.  (The goofy guy up front is me)





I won't bore you with more training photos, but here's one more of my lovely wife.   



And a family photo, including my 14 year old buddy, Shiro (who is usually white).



With the "business" end of the day over with, we headed down to the lake.  We found a rocky beach area down near the dam that apparently everyone else uses on the weekend too.     I blame the complete and utter lack of fish on the plethora of jet skis, boats and noisy rednecks that swarmed that end of the lake.  Some of those jet skis are amazing though...strong enogh to hold a fat lady who really shouldn't ever wear a swimsuit, her tubby kid and still have the guts pull an innertube holding two more brats. 

At the recommendation of the guy at the resort store we tried shore fishing with Powerbait and nightcrawlers, to no avail.  Still, it was a lot better than working. 




The kids both got some on-the-water time, thanks to my pal (and NCKA lurker) Ryan, who was kind enough to loan me his OK Scrambler. 




By late afternoon we'd had enough and headed back to camp for some delicious food  (my favorite part of camping, since my wife has mad cooking skilz).  More late arrivals showed up, and we had a nice evening cooking smores in front of the fire pit, and killing a premium bottle of sake that I brought back from our last trip to Japan.  One of my intermediate students broke out a bottle of Liqueur Chartreuse, which I respectfully declined.  I'm smart enough to know that 6000' elevation, a 55% alcohol drink and next-morning karate don't mix.  Apparently, Grasshopper still has much to learn... 

Sunday morning arrived, bringing yet more training (I'll skip those pics), a nice breakfast and another trip to the lake.  With a lot of folks headed home the lake traffic had died down quite a bit, giving me hopes of actually getting a fish photo for my report.  Ahahahaha...    I spent hours trolling with a flasher/nightcrawler rig for nada.  Tried a variety of depths, from 30' to 180'...zilch.  BTW, that's the deepest I've ever fished!  Even ocean fishing, where the deepest I've gone was to 120' or so.  It was sort of weird, hollering at some guy on the shore while floating so far above the bottom.  Shore-guy claimed to have caught a 3-pounder, BTW, but I personally think he was mocking me.

Just a few Sunday pics:







Anyhow, after a second fishless day my pride had taken a big hit.  I felt a little better when we headed to the resort and I spoke to a guy who'd just pulled his big boat out of the lake; he'd only caught "3 little ones" all day, and I know he spent a lot more than me to fish that day. 

Sunday night brought more great food, and a quiet campsite...everyone had left, except for four of us and the campground host.  It was really nice, but eerie.  Got up Monday, packed and headed out by 11am so I could get home early enough to teach my evening class.  It took me 4 days to get the camping gear cleaned and put away, and the bottoms of my feet clean.  I can't wait to do it again!

Magnificent report Pete.  Sorry about the skunk but it sounds like everything else more than made up for it!

Michael