Missed Opportunities – Bass Lake Provincial Park
This week I took some vacation and decided to do some camping. I’ve been trying to go to parks that I haven’t been to before so I picked Bass Lake Provincial Park near Orillia, Ontario. I was a little weary of going to Bass Lake, because there were not a lot of campsites and it was formerly farm land. I was afraid I would be camping in a farmer’s field, which wouldn’t be much fun. However, it turns out the site that we reserved is probably the best in the park, site number 87 for anyone who is interested. It seemed to be the only site that had any real privacy and was located just steps from shore. Unfortunately I didn’t pay attention to my battery meter on my new camera and as soon as I got to the park the battery died. I was able to get this one picture of a frog on a rock.
I would have loved to show you more of the park, but this will have to do for now.Bass lake was much larger then I expected it to be, which was a pleasant surprise. The beach area was much as I expected, small and overcrowded. I’m sure it would be great if I had kids they could run around with all the other children, but for two adults looking for some peace and relaxation the beach was not the place to be. The nice thing about Bass Lake is that the shores are rocky rather then marshy. My wife and I brought our water shoes and were able to enter the water at any point along the shore. The water was clean and relatively warm.
Of course with a name like Bass Lake I had to go fishing! We rented a boat and headed out for half the day. I was using a silver crank bait, which I’m told is good for bass fishing. It wasn’t too long before I had a bite. I was reeling the lure in and could see it as it got closer to the boat and with only about 1 meter to go a small mouth bass came out from the murky bottom and hit the lure like a ton of bricks. It caught me by such surprise that I quickly jerked the rod back. This resulted in only hooking him in the lip. I figured if I don’t get him in the boat now he’ll break free. As I lifted the fish out of the water he continued to struggle and dropped back into the lake. That was about it for fishing. I teased a school of small perch with my lure, but there were no more bites for the day.
I really enjoyed myself and I suggest that everyone goes out camping or cottaging this weekend for some fun with friends and family.
We went up to Bass Lake provincial park this weekend and had a TERRIBLE experience. Immidiately when we entered with young families we must have been flagged because shortly after we arrived the park ranger was up to pay us a visit. We had reserved 3 joint campsite’s for 10 people (not including young children) We decided to use the center campsite as our dining/campfire/hangout spot. WHoah big no no. Apparently you aren’t allowed to have more than six people at a campfire! We continued our evening with caution as the 17 year old park ranger paced around our campsite ready to give out tickets for EVERYTHING!! This was the biggest problem we encountered, the staff had such lack of life experience that all that power got to their heads. We were threatened a ticket for picking marshmallow sticks out of the woods, music being played from an iPhone(so..not very loud). As we recalled a tale from highschool about smoking pot she approached saying she heard us talking about drugs and would have us evicted for “using” on the campground. The following day we were in a baseball tournament and therefore not at the campground ALL day. but the second we returned one of our group got written up a $180 ticket for saying “ass” Needless to say many of us did not stay a second night. I would not reccommend anyone going to this campground!!!
My husband and 17 year old son spent the August 1st long weekend at Bass Lake P. P. We were joined be my two brothers, 2 sisters, their spouses and children, and my mother. 13 in total. We had 4 sites but also ate dinner and watched the campfire on one site each night. We had not a lick of trouble from anyone, park ranger included. Bass Lake P. P. is a very nice park and we had a great weekend. I very much recommend this park!