Conconully 2012 – Trip Report

This was a special year as it marked the 25th anniversary of this unlikely group of guys coming to Conconully for a long weekend of fishing and socializing.

Stats:

- May 30 – June 4, 2012

- Weather: Not bad, in the 55-75 degree range with the odd shower and some breezy periods. Water too cold for swimming.

- Attendees: Chief, Dave, Mike (6 days), LeeRoy (4 days), Jimmy Jo-Jo (1 day), Brian, Mark, Fritz (5 days), Ben, Zac, Peter, Brenton (3 days), Killer (aka Mark) and Larry (1/2 day).

- Location: Conconully Resort, cabins 1 and 2 (four nights) and cabin 4 (two nights)

- Fishing: a little slower than the last few years, but maybe we got spoiled

Jimmy Jo-Jo isn't pictured in this event since he left before our group arrived. Evidently Dave, Chief and Mike were too tough on him. Although I heard other reasons that might be more correct.

Highway 20 had opened about three weeks prior to the event, so we had the good fortune to enjoy that beautiful drive, stopping in Winthrop for the traditional meal of chili burgers to get our insides churning - and the other traditional stop at Loup-Loup for the first beer.

Fritz got to know the Les Schwab folks well on the way up from some tire troubles on his boat trailer, losing about four hours in the process.

One day we came back to find cabin 1 circled with "Crime Scene - do not cross" tape, making us wonder what Dave, Chief and Mike got caught at. Turns out it was just Kevin marking a keep-away area for his daughter's high school graduation party. We've watched her grow up through the years, and she's turned out better one would suspect from her circumstances. She plans on becoming a cop so maybe she'll give us a break some day.

Fritz has a way of making normal chairs look like they were designed for kids...

Fritz is wearing his 25th anniversary "Conconully Kokaneer" shirt Maybe this wasn't the perfect name since the Chief asked one of us to bring him a Kokanully beer. That may not have been his first Kokanully of the day.

Early afternoon on Friday, the younger guys all showed up. Here they are (except Peter, who was out with Fritz) leaving dock on a fishing mission. They had a cooler to sit on, but I think it was probably empty.

As you can see by his shirt, LeeRoy is heavily involved in the STP (Seattle to Portland bicycle run). He's in training.

LeeRoy brought his Beagle named Misty along. If you had any food in your hand, she could certainly shame you into giving her some.

The "kids" were back after a while, and Zac showed me that the cooler was really empty. You don't want to look too closely at what was in the net though. They probably found the empties beside the lake and wanted to help clean up the area.

Dave found some empties beside the lake too evidently. We do our part for the environment!

Misty was busy helping LeeRoy do his Sudoku puzzle.

The Chief gave Fritz a red Marine flag for his boat (fits into the light holder in the rear), and a matching Marine cap. When 6'-7" Fritz flies his Marine colors, nobody on the lake gives him crap! Well, just us I guess.

One of the many BS sessions on the porch of cabin 2. Note that I'm drinking a Diet Mountain Dew, since I'm purer than the rest of this crew.

And more BS going on at cabin 1.

Two of our boats headed out.

One of our boats not heading out. LeeRoy's motor decided this year that it would either run great, or not at all. Even with all the electronics expertise in this group, we couldn't fix an intermittent electronics module.

As per tradition, we used our half-ton taxi to get us back and forth between camp and the Sit'N'Bull.

I'm thinking that maybe next year, rather than taking the pick-up to town, we should bring alternative Conconully Kokaneer clothing and walk to the Sit'N'Bull. We could look something like this:

Here we are at the Sit'N'Bull, with Dave doing his "Dave's Not Here" act.

That's Killer with the gray beard and white shirt on the right. Very nice guy, fit right it. Chief likes him even though he's a Chevy guy.

We were disappointed to hear that Double-Ds (or is it Lucky-Ds?) burned down. It was the best place in town to eat. Nobody in town talks about the circumstances (it was for sale). I really missed the chance to Karaoke there this year.

Classic Chief shot, the guy who keeps us all together...

And while the fishing wasn't as good as the last few years (most folks blamed it on the lake being too cold), it wasn't all that bad. Here are Dave and Chief smoking some up. I think that's what Dave is doing.

Here's Mike explaining how the world works. He flew in again from Nebraska for the event. Always good to see him, even though the "boys" have taken over his job as a master fire-builder.

Kevin's new employee and his pet goat. We were warned to not wear camouflage pants, the goat will eat them right off of you!

Dave was good enough to bring firewood, so we had evening fires.

Ben's going fishing, no doubt after getting a lot of advice from those standing around. He's about to find out if it is good advice.

Somebody was going to put Misty's leash over the trailer ball of LeeRoy's truck, and discovered that it was about ready to fall off. After the outboard motor troubles, LeeRoy might not have minded.

This lead to a discussion of the proper way to use a Crescent wrench after we told LeeRoy he was doing it wrong. Nobody in this group hesitates to offer an opinion. But LeeRoy made a convincing engineering argument, and I do believe he was correct. From now on, I guess we have to believe everything LeeRoy says!

Here's Mark enjoying some fishing and scenery.

Meanwhile, the crew in Fritz's boat were busy fishing.

The winning fish this year was 17 1/4" long, caught by Peter (who also caught a 16 1/2" trout). Part of his good luck, no doubt, was the OSU Beaver shirt.

The award ceremony is about to begin.

The award this year was a magnificent hand-built boat that Mark made. How does he do it?

Amazing detail in Mark's work - even the wooden anchor swivels and the oar-locks work. This isn't a kit, he scaled down the drawings for a full sized boat.

No stinking engraving service for Mark, he did it himself.

Hopefully we’ll all be back next year for more good times with good friends. There have been years with bad weather, years with few fish, but no bad years!

Cheers,

Brian