Cupsuptic Lake camping trip

A couple of weeks ago I went camping for two days on the remote western shore of Cupsuptic Lake in the Rangeley area.

Cupsuptic actually forms the northern bay of Mooselookmeguntic, one of Maine's largest lakes. At one time, Cupsuptic was a separate lake. But after the installation of Upper Dam on Mooselook, the water level was raised 12 feet and lakes became one.

We had a gorgeous waterfront tent site with an ancient moss- and lichen-covered dock out front. Aside from a few fishermen who passed by in trolling motorboats, we were the only people around for miles. That's how remote this place is. The only way to reach this site, part of the Stephen Phillips preserve, is via a two-mile boat ride across the lake. We loaded the boat with tents, bedding, food, wine and fishing gear. We wanted to paddle around the area so we strapped a pair of kayaks to the boat.

The weather was perfect and the lake was like glass much of time -- rare for these lakes where a strong northwesterly wind roars down from the mountains and out of nearby Canada most days. The calm surface made for perfect paddling conditions. Check out the video.

It was more 16 miles of challenging terrain, terrain covering all sorts of circumstances.

A mile and a half of uncut hiking trail. Eight miles of obstacle-ridden mountain bike trail. Seven miles in a canoe on the Baskahegan Stream.

And just 2 Lawrence High School students trying to cover the course in less time than 8 other teams of high school students.

Seniors Bow Willoughby and Tyler Hienrich of Fairfield finished 4th in the East Grand Adventure Race, completing the course in a time of 2 hours, 56 minutes last Saturday. The East Grand team of Harvey and Abe Brittain were the day's winners in a time of 2:25.

Think Bear Grylls of Discovery's "Man vs. Wild" meets CBS's "The Amazing Race." Along the way teams encountered everything from newborn moose to washed-out culverts.

"Not only did the event promote good physical exercise," said event organizer Dave Conley of East Grand High School, "(but) it was a fun way to get young people involved with the outdoors while imroving on wilderness traveling skills."

I know better than this, but blinded by a nice spring morning and biting fish I kind of forgot.

And I nearly paid a pretty good price for it, too.

Thankfully, I was on familiar ground -- a typical choice for me being McGrath Pond in Oakland. It's 5 minutes from the house and perfect for plunking the canoe into the water for the first time in the season. It was cold and breezy, but the few smallmouth bass in the pond were at least interested in what I had to offer at the end of my line.

But I wasn't quite satisfied with what I had in front of me. Looking at 3 cormorants lined up on the rocks jutting out from a small island, I knew they had to know where the fish were congregating -- and I'd had luck out there in summers past.

Not thinking, I pointed the canoe toward the island and paddled.

The stiff wind, though, pushed me right on past the island and into a cove on the oppposite shore. I stupidly thought the wind would die down, so I waited on the chance to paddle back across. It never came.

Two tries later, two 180-degree turns later, I was still in the cove with no hope of paddling across by myself. I found an open swath of grass on the property and pulled the canoe ashore. Then I called my wife and told her I was going to need help.

I had to walk more than a mile along a twisted labyrinth of roads to get back to my car -- then drive back down the road marked "PRIVATE" and to the lawn where I'd left my canoe under the "NO TRESPASSING" sign.

I loaded up and made a quick escape, more embarrassed about having been so careless on the water than about having been on someone else's property. I'm fairly certain it could have been easily been explained.

Moral of the story? Even when you know where you are, even when you're sure you know what you're doing, caution has to be front and center. Consequences can be disastrous -- far more so than hopping out of a canoe on a shore a mile from the launch site -- if you don't.

No matter how many fish you can catch out by that island in a 20 mph wind...

-- TB

I've got a few random thoughts rattling around my head after a soggy weekend in the bush...

* It's a beautiful thing, being in the woods before sunrise, listening to all of the sounds. The songbirds as they greet the day, the wild turkeys gobbling off in the distance, the relentless hammering of woodpeckers.

Two toddlers in the house, plus an odd work schedule that isn't really on a schedule at all, makes early mornings difficult in the best of times. Still, every time I make the decision to get out while it's dark, I'm never disappointed.

* You know you're getting a little punchy there, junior, when a dog barking in the distance sounds like a tom answering your call.

* Kudos to the 118 anglers -- paired off into 59 teams -- that made it out to the Maine Open B.A.S.S. Tournament on Cobbossee Lake on Sunday.

It was wet, cold and rough going on the open water. But, as one of the fishermen put it, "Other than that, it was perfect."

* It's officially open water fishing season now. How do I know?

Well, it had nothing to do with ice-out or water temperatures and everything to do with permission. As in, when my wife turned to me and said, "You really ought to try to touch water with the canoe this weekend," I knew I was good to go.

* The red-winged blackbirds are back. It must be spring.

-- TB

This won't qualify as any kind of a ground-breaking blog entry, but it's important stuff, nonetheless.

Central Maine waters are still icy cold, and that means being prepared. If you are out in a boat, canoe or kayak -- which the Maine Warden Service is urging against right now -- it's important to keep a few things in mind.

Here are some cold water survival tips from the MWS:

*Always tell someone where you are going and when you expect to return. When taking the boat out early in the season, and especially when hunting and fishing, form a group and take several boats along.

* Dress properly for the cold. Several layers of light clothing offer better protection than a single heavy layer. Next to a diver’s wet suit, wool or polypropylene offers the best protection.

* Always wear your life jacket when on the water. It is extremely difficult to put on a life jacket in cold water.

* If you do find yourself in cold water, try not to panic. Think survival. Keep movement to a minimum and if you do have to tread water, do it slowly. This will reduce heat loss and aid retention of the air trapped inside your clothing, which can provide buoyancy and insulation. If you find yourself in swift water, float and point your toes downstream.

Contributed photo

So you like the classic look, the incredible durability of the traditional wood-canvas canoe?

Well, Jerry Stelmok, who makes them at Island Falls Canoe in Atkinson, thinks anybody should be able to do it.

"You're building something that's very complex when it's finished," Stelmok said this week, "but it's made of about 50 steps that are really very simple, really."

Here they are, according to Unity College senior William Hafford -- who built an 18 1/2-foot Maine Guide canoe under Stelmok's watchful eye this winter:

* 1: Mill out the parts. This includes making all of the structural pieces -- the ribs, gunwales, deck plates, yokes, etc. -- for construction.

* 2: Bending on the form. Maleable white cedar is soaked, heated and bent over the form.

* 3: Attach the planking. Planking is made of ultra-thin cedar, and it is attached to the ribs to give it the first look of a "boat."

* 4: Take it off the form. The canoe is soaked, lifted off the form and the roughly 2,000 tacks are fastened more tightly.

* 5: Canvas the canoe. The canoe's hull is sanded and one sheet of canvas is folded in half, and the canoe is dropped in.

* 6: Filler and other prep. Canvas is sealed with a thick paint-like substance and sanded. Varnish is applied in several coats to inside of canoe.

* 7: Painting. Canoe is painted with 4 coats of paint and sanded in between applications.

* 8: Attach final pieces. Seats, handles, thwarts and other accessories are added for final project.

Read the complete story in today's Kennebec Journal.