Grindstone Outpost July 2 to July 5, 2015

[Fort Wisers]

Got back Sunday night from our trip to Miwapanee's Grindstone Outpost camp.
My wife, our two girls, my mom and myself spent Thursday, 2-July-2015 to Sunday, 5-July-2015 at the camp.
I will start the report stating that this wasn't expected to be a hardcore fishing trip....but we had a great time touring that end of the lake and we did get in a little rod and reel time!

Had the boat packed up and hitched to the truck Wednesday night.
My plan was to leave 4:00am the Thursday morning but I woke up at 2:00am and was too excited to get back to sleep so I was on the road by about 3:00am.
The rest of the crew came up in my wife's car at a more sensible time (their loss IMO)!


Mid morning I got past the imfamous Mattawa HWY (533) without any trouble so I gave the truck a break.
The truck has a lot of km on her and the boat is pretty much at it's maximum towing capacity so I was relieved that she made it this far without issue.


Carried on to temiscaming and stopped for beer, fish lic etc at Stop 102/Pronature.
Got onto the lake by about 10:00am.
This was the boats maiden voyage for the year and her first time on Kipawa period!
Went for a quick visit to my Uncle's camp down in Jawbone.


Got a text from my wife, mid afternoon, stating that she was nearing Kipawa, so I fueled up and headed to Miwapanee.


After about a 45 minute boat ride from Miwapanee we arrived at the outpost camp, just in time for dinner and a few cold ones!
(we lucked out with gorgeous weather)



Kids were happy to be north and thrilled with the local bunny population!



Friday morning we started the day with a quick fish off the dock.
Proud to say my oldest caught her first Northern Pike!
Even prouder to say she knew what type of fish it was without anyone's help!!!



After a good breakfast we took a spin down to Redpine Area.
Kids got to practice their "captain skills" a little.






Oops, ran out of time, Gotta run make dinner....I'll finish the report and post more pics later tonight!
Cheers:
Brent

[puckster_guy]

 Awesome pictures, great post Bro. Did you get much fishing in? I miss those days with the kids (never thought I'd say that lol) my youngest is 22 and I made his day yesterday when I gave him my old civic. Time flies

[Dog]

awesome pictures! Sounds like a good time with the family, that's the most important thing.

w.r.t the FJ, sweet truck. It'll lat forever. the most important thing with towing is the tranmission. Adding an auxiliary B&M transmission cooler will help for sure. Other than that, if your tongue weight is within limits/ capacity you should be good. A nice suspension refresh (if sagging) should be all you need. PM if you want to chat. I'm a toyota enthusiast and am real familiar with their entire truck line, right now we drive a 4Runner but will be upgrading to a Land Cruiser in the coming years...-Nate

[Jay Thomas]

Great report Brent accompanied by great pictures. Its always nice to see children learning how to fish. Can't wait to see the remaining pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Jay

[Fort Wisers]

OK, dinner done, one's in bed and the other is at soccer with my wife!
Back to the report:

Finished Friday night with a bon-fire and taking in the scenery!



Saturday we took a spin into the main end of the Lac to visit my brother, sister in-law and their kids.
Helped him put up some pine at his camp, drank some beers and watched the kids play.
They took a tour back into Grindstone with us that afternoon on their boat but didn't stay long as dark clouds were looming.
Somehow in all that fun we managed to take no pictures:(
Luckily the rain held out for the evening and we finished the night with a bonfire, my wife's famous nachos and a quick fish.
We found a good bank in between the camp and Ile Butney and marked a school of fish.
The fishing was short lived though as it was past the kids bed time so we only managed to get a few bites and no fish.





Sunday offered a warm (rather muggy actually) sunny day, so our trip out was nice.
Always hard to leave!


Looking forward to spending more time on the lake at the end of July!
Take care, thanks for reading my long post!
Brent

[Fort Wisers]

Awesome pictures, great post Bro. Did you get much fishing in? I miss those days with the kids (never thought I'd say that lol) my youngest is 22 and I made his day yesterday when I gave him my old civic. Time flies

Thanks Joe!
Now that I've finished the report you can see fishing wasn't high on the old priority list LOL.
It is a fun age for sure.....
We do our best to expose them to the life we enjoy, hopefully some of it sticks!
Our oldest turns 7 this fall, I can already see that time is slipping by quickly, and I can't imagine it slows down the further we go!
LOL

[Fort Wisers]

awesome pictures! Sounds like a good time with the family, that's the most important thing.

w.r.t the FJ, sweet truck. It'll lat forever. the most important thing with towing is the tranmission. Adding an auxiliary B&M transmission cooler will help for sure. Other than that, if your tongue weight is within limits/ capacity you should be good. A nice suspension refresh (if sagging) should be all you need. PM if you want to chat. I'm a toyota enthusiast and am real familiar with their entire truck line, right now we drive a 4Runner but will be upgrading to a Land Cruiser in the coming years...-Nate

Hey Nate,
Thanks, we did have a great time!
I'm also a big toyota fan!
I've owned nothing but toyota trucks since day one including:
1991 PU (made it to 360,000km+, a lot of which were really abusive)
1993 4 runner (made it to 340,000km+)
Our current 2007 FJC (currently at 454,000km)
We currently have a 1976 FJ40 as our work truck for around the house and my wife's car is a 2011 matrix.

The FJC has been a solid truck, it rolled 454,000km this morning and is still running half decent but nothing lasts forever and it is showing signs of its age.
If it hits 500,000km I'll be a very happy camper, the truck already doesn't owe us a thing.
The truck came with a stock tranny cooler and I'm "religious" with maintenance.
I change the tranny fluid every 30,000km on this truck as it sees a lot of hard pulling miles.
The tongue weight on the boat is well balanced but the boat and trailer is about 4800lbs which is really close to that 5000lbs capacity of the truck.
So I take it slow when pulling this boat (also part of the reason I hit the road early!).

I'm a member of the toyota 200,000 mile and 250,000 mile club and will hopefully be submitting for the 300,000 mile club with this truck (fingers crossed).
You can find me at IH8MUD, fjcruiserforum...PM me any time to talk Toyotas!

LOL, I think I just hijacked my own thread, sorry to get so off topic!

[600 miles north]

Great pics FW! Those kids will remember that trip for a long time to come! Looks like you had a great time, thanks for sharing them with us!

Brad

[Fort Wisers]

@Jay Thomas  and @600 miles north , thanks guys! It's my pleasure to share the memories!

[Fort Wisers]

Hummmm messed something up and somehow reposted the whole thing twice.....deleted

[SgtCrabby]

F.W.;  fantastic report.  I love that you are exposing your daughters to the outdoors life. .  At this age, they wouldn't want to fish all day/ everyday. 
I have 3 daughters and only 1 really likes fishing today. Ages 37, 35, 33; but my grandson loves fishing! 

Hijacking your own thread? nope, good info. Especially for any other Toyota enthusiasts  (hello my nephew, aka Nate) .

[getthenet]

Great report !!! Thanks for sharing !!!

[pike mike]

Great report FW .It made my morning !! Very heart warming to see your family getaway .Spending relaxing time with family is the most important thing you can do .Watching your children having fun and enjoying themselves is A#1 , the best thing on the planet .Any fishing that takes place is only an added bonus .I hope your girls(and Wife) had a blast .Were the bugs behaving themselves ? How did the girls make out with the skitters and blackflies?

[Fort Wisers]

Great report FW .It made my morning !! Very heart warming to see your family getaway .Spending relaxing time with family is the most important thing you can do .Watching your children having fun and enjoying themselves is A#1 , the best thing on the planet .Any fishing that takes place is only an added bonus .I hope your girls(and Wife) had a blast .Were the bugs behaving themselves ? How did the girls make out with the skitters and blackflies?

Thanks Mike!
Bugs weren't as bad as we had thought they were gonna be.
I know earlier in the season they were brutal this year, so we were expecting much worse.
We got lucky...plus they seemed to dwindle each day, towards the end of the trip they weren't bad at all.
The girls and my wife are used to being in the bush, we used to own a small moose hunting camp down near Mattawa, so being in the bush during bug season is nothing new to them.

[BigChief]

@Fort Wisers is that the camp that is for sale on the classifieds? I emailed about it but never heard anything back.