Deer Park Lodge

Wide open roads and reservations

It's amazing to think that here we are with the upcoming Labor Day weekend. Great news regarding the Sleeper Lake fire and Muskallonge Lake State Park. The park is open and the central reservation system is now taking reservations for the remainder of the season. All restrictions have been lifted on County Road 407, plus the containment lines surrounding the fire held up to gusty winds yesterday. The DNR is now reporting that the fire is over 80% contained with improvements being made daily.

Fishing on the lake remains pretty good.  Due to the lack of people throughout the area fishing reports have been limited. However, during the past few days our cabin guest have caught some decent fish and the perch fishing reports out of the Blind Sucker Flooding remain good. Just heard a report off the river and a couple of jack salmon were caught yesterday, which is a great sign for this fishery to be gearing up.  We also picked up an inch of rain last night so that too should help stimulate fishing throughout the area.

Monica and I got to view a beautiful black mink the other day. This guy has apparently found our dead minnow dumping grounds and is now hanging around.  At least four eagles were on the lake last night.  It also appears that the birds are starting to flock up. Today in the yard we had groups of flickers and junco's, plus there's a large group of crows hanging around.  Several  bears have also been spotted throughout the area.

We still have a few cabins available for reservation throughout September and into October. Remember you don't have to stay a whole week - we'd be glad to have you just for a few days.  Give us a call if we can be of further help.

Enjoy the long weekend.   Be Safe and have Fun!!!

M & M

CR 407 Re-opened to All Traffic - Sunday 8/12

Local fire officials reopened County Road 407 to all traffic on Saturday night. The big Sleeper Lake fire is now over 50 percent contained and has a serious fire line around the majority of it. Muskallonge Lake State Park is open for business, and all the local Forest Service Campgrounds are open throughout the area.

We have not seen or felt any danger from this fire since last Tuesday. We will occasionally get a bit of smoke in the air but fortunately the winds have kept that away from us the majority of the time. The fire crews have been doing a wonderful job of keeping this fire within the confines of the marsh and not letting it get into the Jack Pines. We're all grateful for their courageous effort and encouraged by their progress.

Feel free to call us if you have any questions.

(906) 658-3341

Thanks for checking in!

m & m

Sleeper Lake fire news - and some hot fishing!

Might as well get right to it and bring you up to date on the Sleeper Lake Fire.  It's been a week now since a lighting strike started what is turning out to be the largest fire in the U.P. for a good many years. Already it has burnt over 19,000 acres.  Updates are readily available on the "net".

In regards to how it is affecting us, it has been rather trying and quite stressful at times.  Both on Sunday and Tuesday there were major "blow ups" due to heavy south winds. Lots of smoke and ash in the air.  When the smoke goes from white to orange one gets a bit nervous.  Tuesdays events caused the evacuation of Pine Stump all the way up to Perch Lake. The state park campers, and several of the forest service campgrounds were notified that if they wanted to get out of the area via a paved road they had two hours to do so.  As you can imagine most everyone left in quite a panic state. Then at noon the power was turned off with no indication when it would be turned on again.

Tuesday was the worst day by far, but it ended on a great note.  About 8:30 we got a 20 minute downpour, the high humidity broke followed by the power coming on.  This was indeed the turning point for all.  Yesterday good progress was made in containing the fire and today more progress is being made.  Hopefully by the weekend the road will be opened again and we can get on with some sense of normalcy.

On the bright side, some nice fish are still being caught!  One lady had two beautiful 24 inch walleyes last week fishing in the morning.  We put a 20 1/2 inch smallmouth in the freezer for a couple of young men visiting the area who will have this one mounted.  A couple of gals were in this morning getting more minnows, after catching over 40 perch last night in the lake close by.  And, we showed a couple guys how to clean pike bone-free the other day after they rented a boat and came back with 5 fish between 24 and 31 inches.

Our blueberry crop hasn't faired very well with all this dryness.  We hear of the occasional batch being picked in order to get enough for pancakes or a pie, but not many folks getting enough to put in the freezer. All in all the weather has been dry but beautiful. Everyone is swimming in Lake Superior.  Rock picking has been excellent and the low water levels are turning up several artifacts that have been buried for years.

Deer Park Lodge, Muskallonge Lake State Park and the forest service campgrounds throughout the immediate area are still open and ready to help you enjoy your vacation time. You may have to come in from the east or west versus the south, until they reopen County Road 407. But nothing has changed and we'd love to have you come and visit. Feel free to call us if you have any questions.

Travel Safe - M & M

Additional Info: MI Newswire | MI DNR | WLUC-TV6 | Map of fire (PDF)