Great season at the half way point!

It's been a another great (half) season here at camp this summer. We have had some great weather this summer (not too hot), with lot's of sunshine and just enough wind on most days to create a good "walleye chop" on the water. Fishing in July has been very good overall too which always helps to keep a smile on guests faces.

We are also at the mid-point of the Peffley girls six week summer stay in camp and we expect Milissa and Sara to arrive back in camp with us next week. Looking forward to having everyone together again and taking a day here or there for just a little family time.

This is also the time of year where we get more first timers to camp and I have to say we have really enjoyed meeting and making friends with our new guests. After spending many years in the corporate world where a customers shadow in my office doorway meant "we have a PROBLEM", it's a relief to have your customers always showing up in a great mood and eager to experience a fantastic week in the Canadian wilderness. They are happy when they get here and we try to work very hard to make sure that's the way they leave!

We have taken some advantage of the sunshine here recently to get new stain on Cabin decks 1, 4 and 8, with the plan to finish all the decks before seasons end. This is shaping up to be a good year for more general maintenance items vs. major projects. But then again, every year here is a general maintenance year!

Our daughter Emily has taken up photography as a hobby after getting a new Canon camera for her birthday so I thought I would share a few of the budding photographers shots.

Busy times at camp....

As we wrapped up the month of June and head into July, we have remained very busy here in camp. All of the girls are here now (except Sara) who will be joining us later this month once her Mom returns from a two week military related assignment. Fortunately (for them) most of the first two weeks in camp has been very hot and sunny, meaning there has been ample opportunity for swims in the lake whose water temps are now around 75 degrees.

This past week we took a little time to celebrate both Canada Day (July 1) and Independence Day with a camp wide cook out of hamburgers and hot dogs and later in the evening a small fireworks display that all enjoyed very much, bringing the best of the Canadian wilderness and "back home" for our guests together.

With lot's of kids in camp last week it made it a great week for everyone. Of course one of our very special groups (the Holbrook family) were in from the Wabash, Indiana area. This time with Grandma and Grandpa along to celebrate the beauty and serenity of the wilderness and our camp setting. Their visit is always a celebration of friendship and thankfulness for CJ remaining cancer free (many of you may recognize the name as our Make-a-Wish teenager who we provided a free trip to several years ago after he was diagnosed with lymphoma). It's been great to watch him grow up "right before our eyes" as well as younger brother Ben and twin sisters Tarah and Sarah. The boys sure have continued to develop their passion for the sport of fishing becoming active in the FLW tournament series where they recently finished 3rd (and won big bass) at the Fishers of Men Legacy Series Tournament. CJ started his trip well with a nice smallmouth bass while waiting for the boat to arrive at the roadside landing and ended it even better with a PIG 4 pound plus fish while casting from the rock in front of Cabin 6 Friday night. Leave it to that kid to catch two great fish without even having a boat at his disposal! Gotta love it!

Below are just a few pictures from the activities from last week, hope you enjoy, and if you are coming to camp yet this summer, see you soon!

Working the grill and loving it!

Everyone enjoying their meal at the cookout.

The kids enjoy some sparklers before the main firework event
 

Week 4 in the books....

...and what a week it was! Without question the best fishing week so far of our 2013 season. The guys in week 3 sure had it right when they kept saying: "next week things are really going to take off here".

We have been extremely busy here in camp taking care of guests, which has left little time to devote to special projects around camp. Some general maintenance items have been attended to, most notable being a rebuild of the ramp that transitions from the permanent dock to the ATV road going up the hill which we use when transporting your luggage. Much nicer now!

Water levels are high for this time of year, with water well into the motorhouse already. Nothing new there and we've learned to work around it until the water recedes some.

We did have an unusual occurrence in camp last week too as we had a gentleman who is a camp regular have his hip come out of socket while in the cabin putting on his raingear. Very freak accident, but fortunately as he told us, not painful. It did however require the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) to transport a couple of paramedics to the camp to provide him the necessary medical attention. Apparently, as I found out, the paramedics could not be transported on our boat, unless it was a life or death situation. So out came the OPP and the paramedics and within a couple of hours, our guest was on his way to the Dryden hospital where they X-rayed him, popped his hip back into socket and by 7:00 pm that evening he was back in camp having dinner with the rest of the guys. By 8:00 am the next morning he was on the dock, climbing into the boat and off across the lake for some more fishing! I hope I have that much determination when I am 79 years young!

Just a few shots from the last couple of weeks. The photo gallery on the website is way behind but between the photo gallery, the Facebook page and the Blog we hope your able to get your fix of Peffley's Camp news, photos and such.

Dan Worth with a quality eye from last week

Ed Flynn about to release a big northern from Week 3

Momma moose walking the shoreline

Mean Lake sunset.

Mr. Bear approaches the Bowen vehicle on Hwy 502 heading towards camp

The "Hotel". Make a reservation- the walleyes are always biting!

Cathy Connor with a nice walleye from week 3

As mentioned on our Facebook page...When these Wisconsin guys weren't catching perch by the bucketfuls they were slayinig walleye

And when they weren't fishin' they were relaxin' about camp...

Or shore lunching with the rest of the guys

See why it doesn't take long to fill a bucket with these perch...WOW!

Perry Tonn about to give the long-drive contest a shot. He would later win the closest to the pin contest. Congrats Perry!

A two week blur....

That's my best description of the first two weeks of the season. Starting off with the late ice out which dug us into a hole for starters, and compounded by a staff change just one week into the season, there were many times in the first two weeks that we felt so far behind we thought we were ahead.

 Fortunately there weren't too many "unexpected situations" to deal with, although we would like to have a chat with the beaver that took two trees down atop of Cabin 8 and was well on his/her way of bringing down a third when we arrived. We were extremely fortunate that there was very minor damage and other than a few hours of wood cutting, brush hauling and cleanup we came through that situation in pretty good shape.

A broken water line under Cabin 2 was also somewhat problematic as there is little room under the cabins to work on that kind of stuff, but after a couple of hours the necessary fittings were replaced and water was completely installed throughout the camp.

A couple of other minor "surprises" were thrown into our opening for good measure, but let's not sweat the details of those!

The bottom line was this: Camp opened on time and we even got some guests in a day early (Friday afternoon)!!

So the 2013 season is underway and who would have guessed that with such a late ice out that water temps would already be around 46 degrees. It sure provided the conditions for a fantastic opening week with A LOT of big walleyes caught and released, in addition to the ever present great eating 15-18 inchers that Wabaskang Lake is known for. Our second week of the season found the post spawn fish dispersing to their various late spring/early summer haunts and while the fishing was still very good overall, it did require some moving around to intercept these post spawn fish.

I'm not going to repost any pictures on the blog right now from the first couple of weeks, but you can see many of them in our photo gallery at www.peffleyscamp.com or a few highlight shots on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peffleys-Canadian-Wilderness-Camp/518316711547563

As usual, we don't have many "new" guests with us in the months of May/June but we want to mention that we had a really good time hosting our newbies during these two weeks. Great people, great times and we thank you for choosing us for your 2013 fishing trip.

It feels good to be "caught up" with getting camp opened and we also want to say a special THANK YOU to a few of our early season guests who pitched in with a little help. I won't mention any names, but you guys know who you are, and we hope you know how much we sincerely appreciate the help. THANKS again!!

Until next time, tight lines....

HWY 502 CLOSED- as of May 22

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THOSE TRAVELING INTO NW ONTARIO FOR THE WEEK OF MAY 25

For all our guests traveling highway 502 to Dryden this weekend May 25th, please be aware that as of today, Hwy 502 is closed just north of the junction of Hwy 11 near Ft. Frances as the result of a washout. Hopefully the Canadian Border Services Agency can provide more current information as to the status of the highway condition when you cross the border. In advance of the trip you may also find more current information from the CKDR Radio website www.ckdr.net regarding the closure.

Should the highway remain closed by Saturday (May 25) you can travel Highway 11 West out of Ft. Frances to Highway 71 North thru Sioux Narrows to Hwy 17 East to Vermilion Bay. This route is approximately 30 miles longer but very scenic.

Good luck, travel safe and see everyone Saturday!

A wild ride....

That may be the best way to describe the past several days... beginning with a helicopter ride into camp on Wednesday, May 15th. With time running out on us and LOTS of ice still floating around on the big lake, combined with NW winds (keeping it in our way), we made the decision to helicopter in. This afforded us the "luxury" of having all four of us (Milissa, me and our staff) in camp with a whopping 48 hours to get ready for the 2013 season.

With a simple one item "to-do" list we set in on the task at hand. Unfortunately the one item on the to-do list was "everything". While we didn't accomplish "everything", we were ready for our first guests this morning.

It remains amazing to me how quickly the ice conditions can change, as we boated out to the big lake yesterday morning only to find ice from Peffley's Point as far as we could see towards Indian narrows. The leading edge we broke through was probably still 2 1/2" thick and the ice looked more silvery the further you looked towards the narrows, indicating to me that the ice there could be at least 4-6" thick. By 2:00 in the afternoon, NE winds had moved all that ice into back bays and the entire length of the big lake that had been 100% ice covered was now 100% ice free. Game on! Time to get guests into camp and get the 2013 season underway.

So here we are, Saturday, May 18th (2013 opening day) and we have been greeted with intermittent sprinkles throughout the day. Nothing even heavy enough to call a shower. Light winds, warm temps (around 60), made for a very nice opening day. The fishing reports by days end made it even nicer as everyone in camp reported excellent fishing for the day, including Tom Casper's crew who stated it may very well have been their best opening day with us EVER. Water temps of 46 degrees also had me amazed, as with such a late ice out I was anticipating fishing water no warmer than 39-40 degrees, but the warmer water really helped with the walleye bite.

I will try to get some pictures here on the Blog or Facebook soon of our flight into camp and some fishing pictures from opening week.

Until next time...

Still waiting....

Well I was hopeful that my next blog entry would be done from camp and with a "first-hand" update on ice conditions on the North end of Wabby. Those hopes were dashed in a five minute phone conversation with Wayne Clark from Clark's Northern Lights resort. Wayne got a plane in the water and was kind enough to do a fly over camp for me to assess the situation. Unfortunately, his report was not  good. Miller's Bay (around  the corner from camp) is still locked tight  with ice making it impossible still to sit a plane down there.

With weather conditions forecast this week (some rain and chance of thundershowers) the next feasible possibility to fly in would probably be Wednesday. Now from my perspective, while very "tight" in terms of turning camp around and being ready to open, it can be done. We faced a similar situation in 2008 and I was amazed how much you can get done in a 24 hour work day! IF we can get there Weds or Thurs, camp will be ready to open Saturday.

The weather forecast is for high temps in the 50's and 60's for most  of the week with chances of rain most every day beginning this afternoon and continuing thru Weds. Let's hope that holds up (the rain),  although it would be nice to  see a forecast with 70's and even 80's (remember last year). Just like during the season: there just isn't a darn thing anyone can do about the weather. Stay tuned for more updates, and remember when the ice finally decides to go, it can happen practically overnight.