Autumn Camping!

One of my favorite experiences is camping during autumn. When the weather turns crisp, its kind of cool to be outside for an entire weekend. It helps that you don't have to sweat out the afternoon, but sometimes the nights are bitterly cold. We've been camping the past three weekends and they have all been quite different. The first weekend was my first opportunity to join John Froman down in West Virginia at Gauley Fest. It is a whitewater rafting festival, but we went down to do some rock climbing on Saturday, and hang out with friends. It was actually the other way around as the my climbing left a lot to be desired. However, we did see a juvenile 5-lined skink scurrying across the rock face.

The following weekend, Traci and I went camping with some of my co-workers at Eastern. We wanted to just camp, but it's impossible for me to go up north in the fall without trying to catch some salmon. We saw some fish up in the creek we were fishing, but I must admit that I am not too good at that style of fishing. It's very frustrating to see a 20 pound salmon swim right past your spinner. We didn't have any luck as I lost the one bite I had for the short time we were at the river. We did enjoy each others company, and the break from schoolwork was much needed. The weather was nice and mild, but that all changed the following weekend.

This past weekend, we went back to the same area in the Manistee National Forest for a fishing trip. Brian and Kathy came up, along with my dad and Traci, with the intent on catching some chinook salmon. The salmon were up in the river near Tippy dam, but none of had waders. they were even in a little creek near our camp, but small streams are closed as of Oct.1st. Plus, who wants to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of yahoos. We put in a valiant effort casting from the pier of the Big Manistee, but the tasty fishies weren't around. Traci did catch two large sheepshead, but who wants to eat these bottom feeders. If you want some pics of them, check out her new blog, and keep up to date as she is off to Guatemala next week. This was our last adventure until she's back at Christmas.