•Drinkin'
•Fishin'
•Eatin'
•Drinkin'
LPLT.COM
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LPLT
2005
The Lake's
a risin'
by Buck Ames
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The cast for 2005 included Deadeye, Buckwheat, Luther, Stinky,
Wallstreet, Jake, Freeburg, Banjo, and this year's rookie, Gary
"Flagman" Auten of Rochester Hills, MI. Flagman established his
credentials for the trip early this year by buying 4 cases of assorted
Michigan microbrews (you know the kind that a fork will stand by
itself in the head for two days) just in the event that the assorted
crap that Freebie normally brings along was skunky. However, Flagman
soon learned that UPS apparently found his choices too skanky and
refused to ship them. Never fear, Buck, Banjo and the FMan did load
themselves up with some other Michigan products, namely the Strick9
and Super Stud tubes and jig heads aptly named for our pal Kim "Dixie"
Stricker. These products have proven very successful with the fish in
this part of the world but apparently far less appetizing to humans as
Gambler filed for bankruptcy shortly after beginning to markets
Dixie's new lures. Anyway, enough of the trip preparation. Commuting
to Durango proved interesting as the 3 DC boys managed to miss one
airplane and get cut off the booze on another before arriving. Luther
didn't exactly help the trade value of the pickup he drove down by
bouncing it off the guard rails coming over Lizard Head pass. However
all did arrive safe and sound and Stinky did come through with a
loaner bass boat from a (former) friend with the caution that "she
leaks a bit". But more about that later. The LPLT crew did depart
Durango at 6:10am on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 in blue but very cold
skies. The first dilemma we faced was that the long time breakfast
and potty stop of choice, Connie's Blue Mountain Cafe, in Dove Creek
is now closed. However, we did find another more than acceptable
greasy spoon named the Food Basket or something equally clever. Their
food proved to be more than acceptable, the waitress was smokin hot
(by Dove Creek standards) and they actually thought we were funny.
Buck was somewhat miffed when he went to use the "convenience" and
found that they had a room only for "Gentlemen". He fooled them by
using it anyway. Calls were also made to our missing comrades.
Knickerknocker was smart and gave Deadeye a wrong number OR, Deadeye
was drunk and dialed it wrong. Either way we never got a hold of the
banker. A message was left for DooDoo, requesting he perform a
physical impossibility. It was then on to Monticello and the quest to
show the rookie the horse's head. After 16 beers and much coaching in
that 40 miles, the rookie claimed to see the horse, and the entire
Calgary Stampede on the face of the Henry's. The Doo did catch up to
Buckwheat during the next tinkle stop at the abandoned tin building
outside of Blanding. Actually the Doo sounded quite relieved that he
was wrestlin with contractors on his multimillion dollar money pit on
Cass Lake rather than sharing libations with the LPLT boys. It was on
to the Lake without incident. We unloaded on the Halls side and sent
Deadeye, Jake, and Freebie on to get the houseboat. The weather was
beautiful, clear blue skies, no wind and about 65 degrees. We headed
down the Lake (Banjo kept his wedding ring on, and we found a very
nice houseboat site on the west side of the lake, just about a mile
south of Annies Canyon, and across the main channel from Walleye
Point. The first night out was a very memorable one as massive
amounts of pain killers were injected. Jake was speaking in tongues,
Deadeye was gigglin up a storm, Banjo was jabberin, Flagman was amazed
and Buckwheat couldn't quite remember the details of the infamous "Fly
over the trout stream in Alaska" story. We awoke the next morning to
the good news that Wallstreet had NOT forgotten the cinnamon rolls
this year (actually they were from 2004 when he did forget). However
he had forgotten to thaw them the night before so he got some serious
demerits for that. Wednesday was another beautiful day and the
fishing was quite good. Banjo was the champ after catching a fish on
his very first cast of the trip and boating 10+ smallies that
morning. The forecast for Wed night was for wind and rain but we got
very little of either. However, the loaner boat, you know, the ones
that leaks a bit, was discovered to have taken on about a thousand
gallons of water during the night. Thursday am was cool and breezy
and Stinky decided the only way to adequately drain the water was to
pull the plug while blasting down the lake. That presented an issue
also as this boat alternated between running on two cylinders at about
5 mph, and wide open at about 30. The plan was that Banjo would drive
and Stinky would hang himself over the transom and pull the plug. It
took about 20 minutes of coaxing to get the boat up on plane and
another 10 or so of it taking a leak before Stinky cheated death once
again by putting plug back in. By that time they were frozen nearly
to death. After all that, wouldn't you know it, the starter on
Stinky's boat froze up and Banjo, Stink, and Flagman spent the next
hour tearing that apart, with lots of moral support and guidance from
Luther and Wallstreet. After all that action ceased, the team of
Stinky, Jake and Deadeye were the winners in the fishing tournament
with a total of 8 fish versus 7 for the group of Freebie, Luther, and
Banjo. (EDITOR'S NOTE: I may have those teams wrong but who gives a
drizzlin shit since I'm sure my team got skunked). The weather that
afternoon, for Buck's birthday party was wet, cold, and windy so much
good drinkin, eatin, and nappin was in store. The highlight of the
evening was listenin to Lewis tell about Old Nellie and the bugle one
more time. Friday actually turned out to be a beautiful day. Fishin
was good in the morning, biscuits and gravy were superb and, again,
naps were abundant. One group hiked to the top of the Flying Eagle
Arch and put their names in the book for posterity. Cudos to Flagman
the Flatlander for making that trek. In fact, after dinner the
discussion took a nasty turn toward Banjo and the fact that he's never
been up to the arch. The Executive Committee huddled quickly and
voted Flagaman Rookie of the Year and an automatic pass for 2006, but
placed Banjo on double secret probation. We can expect a ruling on
his exact status sometime in the next 355 days. After the meeting
adjourned an even uglier incident occurred. Let's just say, for the
sake of being discreet, that a political debate ensued with one very
balding Chevy dealer being badly outnumbered. Luther and Buckwheat
tired of this discussion rather quickly and excused themselves. I'm
told that the debate raged till very late with not much movement on
either side of the issue. Saturday was a typical going home day . . .
IT SUCKED!!! Actually the weather was beautiful and the highlight of
the day was watching 6 Denver yuppies launch their million dollar boat
without the plug. The fact that the bilge began pumping about 100
gallons a second was a dead give away, even to that novice crowd. SEE
THE ATTACHED. Fortunately the camera man was handy to capture the
moment of Banjo going to their rescue (or at least he went to the
pleasure of the token Chilie in the group, the one with his pant's
rolled up and the giant smile on his face. Apparently Banjo has been
doing lots of work with his Hard Drive this year!!!) The drive back
to Durango was uneventful and all promised to meet at the same place
again in March of 2006, plus KnickerKnocker and Doo Doo, to do it all
again next year. Hopefully we'll have hockey once again, the DC will
buy the booze once more, and maybe, just maybe, Banjo will figure out
a way to get off probation and join in for the hike to the Arch in
'06. Huge thanks to Luther for providing many cool party gifts and
the majority of the community booze this year (I'm pretty sure he
spent more than the standard GLC $12 allowance). Oh, and one more
thing, NO MORE political discussions!!!!!
Until next year . . .
goodnight, Bassholes.
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