An Outdoorsman's Journal

   A KAMO Classic

Hello friends,

   Every June two chapters of Kids And Mentors Outdoors, www.kamokids.org, the Baraboo River Chapter headed up by Gregg Wagner and the Dodge County Conservation Chapter, (Beaver dam area) whose president is Jim Braker, combine finances and energy and take about 14 kids camping at Juneau Counties, Castle Rock Park. There the kids fish, go tubing, ride bikes, hangout by a campfire and swim a lot. When I can make it happen I join in and this truly is a very fun weekend for everyone.

   Saturday, June 27th
   High 82, low 54

   Picture perfect weather would be one of the highlights of this weekend. This morning it was rise and shine for Gregg Wagner as he was in charge of breakfast, meanwhile I rigged my 18.6 War Eagle for a day of fishing with what would be 4 groups of very into it, fisherkids.
   On their way over from Appleton and pulling a 22-foot Monterey was Eric and Sarah Berlund. Sarah and Eric would spend the day pulling kids on the tube and this is always a big hit and it was pretty special to see Eric and Sarah make the drive and help out.
   Gregg's breakfast was french toast and bacon and it was a dandy.
      After breakfast we launched boats and made a screen tent camp on the beach as that is where we spend the day. My first group of kids who would be learning how to fish by using planer boards was Hunter and Jordyn both of the Beaver dam chapter. Pete "King Cookie" Scheskey who is an avid man at helping kids in the Beaver dam area would drive my boat and the Cookie Queen who wishes to remain anonymous was in the learning stages of driving the boat while I taught how to run planer boards. The story behind the nicknames is that the Queen baked 7 dozen cookies for the kids and the King was addicted to the cookies.
   This may sound simple, but it was crazy as Castle Rock Lake loads up with lots of speed boats on summer Saturdays and running planer boards is fairly challenging. Group 1 caught a walleye, it was just before our 2 hour stint was up and I headed in and took on another group asap as this would go on until 8 pm.
   Meanwhile back at the world of tubing, big Jimmy Braker who is in his mid-60's and about 80 days away from retirement went for a ride behind the Monterey and I was told the boat was going fast, Jimmy held on tight and then went flying hard. I got to give Jim credit for being such a brave soul.
   Group 2 would be made up of The Cookie Queen driving the boat, Brody Mueller who I met last year and then hunted deer with last December, Keagan Riege and a very special girl named Miracle Goldberg who is 10.
     Keagan caught a walleye, Brody had a real good fish on and his line got caught in the prop. Miracle had first try, missed her fish and so that gave her 4th try. The odds were against her, but I kept chanting "there's going to be a miracle." Low and behold it was fish on and Miracle caught a northern pike which at first she would not hold, much less touch. By the time she released it, she had touched it, held it for a photo and released her catch.
   The 3rd to the last group was made up of Ahmir Sandoval, Landen Sullivan and Lucas Olsen. These kids were very into this experience as was the last group, but we had a problem, twice a fella in a speed boat blew by us and the boys who had taken a boater safety course earlier in the day spoke about what he was doing was wrong. About the end of their journey Ahmir was fighting a good walleye, his first real fish experience of his life and the fool in the boat blew by us and cut the line on our opposite side planer board.
   We landed Ahmir's fish, took some photos and then went hunting for the fella that cut our line. We found him, the boys observed, I spoke, the boys were rewarded for their loss, no one said anything ugly and that was that.
   We ended our day by the campfire with Gregg Wagner's famous blueberry cobbler cooked over the campfire and ice cream on the side and it was truly a great American kind of weekend.
   Thank you to all that made this happen!

   Sunset