10/9/09 Lost Maple Primitive Camping

Hello again, this is a late entry but the weekend of the 9th I had reserved a primitive campsite at Lost Maples State Natural Area. With all the rain we had I was afraid that the park would be closed so I called an hour before I planned to leave. Luckily the park was not flooded so I headed out there.

This trip taught me a lot about hiking in camping, namely to pack as light as possible. I had brought moving dolly, stapped my ice chest, tent, backpack, fishing rod, and other items to it and had to haul it in about 2 miles to the camp site- that really sucked. Other backpackers had nothing but their packs and this intrigued me so I asked one young lady from a local college that was there for a backpacking class (what an awesome course to be able to take in college, lol). Other people were simply just using water filtration and getting their water from one of the several creeks in the park- this negated the need for the ice chest. They also packed in dehydrated food- I was living off of beef jerky, mixed nuts, cereal bars, and coffee, lol, but I'm not too hard to please I guess.

I had brought my fly-rod and a packable ultralight spinning reel. That area in the pick was like a wind-tunnel so it was really hard to cast the fly-rod and I didn't have any luck catching fish. Using the ultralight spinning reel with some bait got some bites and the next morning I hooked and broke off what looked to be a nice catfish of about 5 pounds. There were many nice chunky small bass in that water as well but they were not biting.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip and I hope to do it again soon. The next time I'll use the lessons I learned to pack lighter and have an easier time getting into my camping spot.