Camping advice for this weekend!

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for suggestions and recommendations from this well experienced community. The girlfriend and myself were somewhat sporadically looking at going camping this weekend. We would love to get up to Algonquin and go for a nice portage, but it's just too far. Here's the deal:

1) Can't be more than 3 hours away from Ancaster (L9k 1J9).
2) I would love for there to be some Crown Land near by, so I can introduce the girlfriend to shooting a .22. I just picked up a Browning Bl 22 Micro for her (well it's actually for me, shhh), and I would love to be able to plink around with her.
3) We don't own a canoe, or have a means of transporting one. Shore access to water, or a canoe rental would be necessary for us for fishing in my opinion.

Please throw any suggestions or recommendations at me. I was considering Kawartha Lakes but was reading some very negative reviews online. I'm used to the peace and quiet (and cleanliness) of Algonquin Park. Please help :fish:

What about Killbear PP or Massassauga PP?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fishy Wishy

What about Killbear PP or Massassauga PP?

Thank you! Those places look great! Reviews are super positive. I will check them out in some greater detail when I get home from work today!

Never been to either but an old coworker loved Killbear. The Crown Land Use Atlas seems to show some crown around there as well, but you will have to research if there are any discharge laws in the area.

Killbear will be booked solid.. usually booked the first day of reservations..

Grundy Lake park north of Parry Sound would be a good choice.

Second grundy lake. Couldn't remember the name. Spen't lots of time there growing up

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fishy Wishy

What about Killbear PP or Massassauga PP?

We will be going to Killbear tonight for the weekend! It's my second time bringing my girlfriend out, we initially wanted to do something more intense, such as a canoeing and portaging trip in Algonquin but we don't have enough time in my opinion. We will be arriving around 8pm tonight. I got all the pew pew's packed in addition to all of our other gear. The plan is to hopefully find a nice spot to shoot Sunday mid day for a few hours, maybe have a little meal on the crown land, clean up all of our mess (including shell casings, and targets), then continue our drive home. Thanks for the recommendations everyone, I'll update you on the trip when I get back.

Eric

Quote:

Originally Posted by Foxx

Grundy Lake park north of Parry Sound would be a good choice.

I will make a point of checking this park out one weekend in the near future! Thanks for the recommendation.

Grew up with a family cottage North of Parry Sound. Retired to Bancroft because we were not allowed to have a gun in the bush during the summer around Georgian Bay Area. Back then they made you prove you were NOT hunting during the summer months or on Sundays during the fall. Things are actually better now for the shooters except we can no longer use our handguns...

Hey, I just wanted to update anyone who was interested.

We went to Killbear PP this past weekend, arrived at about 9:45pm Friday night and arrived back home at about 11:45 pm Sunday night. The plan was to use one of their "non-reservable" sites. I called them at 8pm Friday just before arrival to "check the availability" of these sites because I didn't want to continue the drive if I was told that there was nothing left. The young girl told us "there are currently 23 available non-reservable sites for us to use" and that there should be no worries about us getting a campsite for the Friday night. We arrived shortly after and the woman in charge told us that none of her employees would have told us such a thing [some non-reservable sites being available] and that none of them were indeed available. She then told us there were 6 reservable sights left and she could put us in one of those sites for the night. We agreed (not that we had any other options for where to stay for that night). The woman who was in charge at the main visitors hut was very kind and professional. She then advised one of her staff to check if that campsite was available for Friday and Saturday night (as we were initially planning on staying two nights), and to our delight it was, so we booked that site (1491) for Friday and Saturday night. I must admit, the young girls handling the phone calls, working at the welcome gate, and working in the main building are about as sharp as a dull stick. While they were all very kind, they appeared to have a very difficult time sufficiently answering questions and providing clarification for me and my girlfriend, in addition to a handful of other frustrated campers in the reservation hut. Like I said though, the woman in charge of the reservation hut ran the show with the two other ditsy girls in an impressive manner. She wore a Kevlar ballistic vest, had an extending baton on her tactical belt, and I believe she was one of the park wardens/rangers. She more than adequately made up for the lack of competence for the other young girls she worked with. Once the sites were booked and she gave us our vehicle tags for our car and site post, we drove down to Lighthouse Point and found our campground. The girlfriend and I prioritized setting up the tent first and then getting a fire going to cool us a late Friday night dinner. It was a "nutnfancy" (for those of you who don't know nutnfancy is a YouTuber who does lots of camping adventure in addition to many knife and gun reviews) style of fire prep we were after. The goal was first to gather all of the wood, process it and then get the fire going, with enough wood pre-processed to sustain the fire until we went to bed. The previous campers to our site left some dead wood already around our fire pit ready to be burned once it was cut down to suitable length. I was about half an hour into processing this wood (and had a decent stock pile ready for the night) when a park warden walked up with his flashlight pointed in our faces saying "This can't happen!", I responded, "what are you talking about?". He proceeded to tell us that we were not actually allowed to burn ANY wood in the forest even if it is already dead and laying on the ground. Our options were to buy their pre bagged firewood for 7 bucks a bag, buy it at a local store outside the park, or harvest some wood from some crown land just outside our camp site. I apologized for the ignorance on my behalf. He was very understanding and apathetic (a very professional and kind young man). He advised us if we hurry we can make it to the check in desk building to buy a bag of wood for the night before they closed in about 5 minutes. I tried to briefly engage him in some conversation while he was on our campsite, and asked him about any recommendations for a location for us to go target shooting the next day. He gave me some directions for a "popular" spot to go target shooting nearby before he needed to run off and quiet down an adjacent campsite. We ran to the visitors desk to buy a bag of wood for the night arriving at 12:02am, (two minutes after they technically close). We had exact change in hand and just needed a bag of wood from the pile beside us. We knocked, and one of the young blonde girls answered the door. As expected she was confused with the situation I explained and (as expected it seems everything we said sailed way over her head). Ultimately after a few minutes of us talking and her standing in the half cracked open door, she agreed to take our money and let us take a bag of wood. We managed to get a good fire going that night, eat lots and went to bed. Saturday, we went for an adventurous walk around the grounds, checking out some potential fishing spots, checked out the beach and hiked the adjacent trails, all in some on and off rain. We seemed to be the only people not too phased of the rain as everyone else seemed cramped under hung tarps on their campsite. Once the rain subsided, we took a drive and went and found a place to shoot. It was very remote with no traces of other individuals. We had an awesome natural rock backstop for our shooting, and plinked some paper for about two hours. On Sunday, we went fishing off the edge of the water for about an hour. Tried many of my most successful lures and not even one nibble. I was kind of disappointed about that. We were watching people in boats not to far from the shore real in some good sized trout which added for my frustration. Anyways we went back to our campsite, managed to get all packed up and well fed and off by 2pm. Then we went to the beach until 5, which was pleasantly clean and well kept. We went shooting once more with what little was left of the .22. I wish I brought more ammo because that Browning Bl 22 and the Ruger 10/22 were just absolutely eating up the ammo like crazy. We hit some pretty bad traffic on the way back, extending our drive by about another hour.

tl;dr version: The majority of the young girls that work there were all blonde (literally) and very incompetent (I'm not just suggesting a correlation, just an observation). The brunette warden who runs the reservations desk is very competent and helpful. The other two wardens we had dealings with for the remainder of the weekend were also very kind, professional, not unreasonable in any way, and ultimately what I would ideally want to see in regards to park wardens. The park was very clean, the other campers were all very kind, exchanging hellos and light conversation every time we walked by. The local shooting spot we ventured to was adequate. I wish I brought more ammo. All in all, it was a great trip, I will certainly go back.

I wanted to thank you guys for the recommendation as I would not have considered this park looking on my own.