I am trying a new format this year, copying someone else's format with black bacground and white text. But it seems to have changed the settings for image display. Since the pix are the only interesting part of the blog this is important.
Must be able to blow up the pix to full size. In the 2010 and 2011 blogs just clicking on a pic made it take over the screen, and clicking on it again would make it full size. The only way I can find to do that in this format is to right click on the image in the blog, click on "Open Link" or better yet "Open Link in New Tab" , and this will open the image on your screen. Then you can click again to make it full size.
I will try to fix this.
Basstravaganza 2012
A big dump of snow in February marked the depth of winter here on Vancouver Island. At this time of year, the wily bass are basically hibernating, hiding out deep in their bassholes, waiting for the days to get longer.
A couple days after this pic was taken, I back up a little to far while trying to get a run at the hill on my driveway, and smash the tongue of my boat trailer – parked behind my car – right thru the back windshield. After $100 for a used window, and a lot of labor, I have a Volvo Hotel again that is impervious to rain. Installing a new set of spark plugs - one of the few times I have taken a wrench to the car - makes the engine run a lot better, so I decide to bite the bullet. After 2 years of hauling the Bullship and trailer all around N America the brakes are totally worn out. It costs me $1,500 for new brakes all around, and now the Volvo is ready for another year of wandering.
Of course, the new fishing season must be christened with a ceremonial First Slurpee!
I fished for a few hours at Elk Lake, hooked one big trout, and lost it.
Since the bass are sluggish at this time of year I will switch to trout and steelhead – migratory rainbow trout that go to sea and then return to their home rivers to spawn. I need an extra license for steelhead, so I head over to the sporting goods store. On sale for $80 is a little toy I have always wanted – an underwater TV video camera.
March arrives, and a long stretch of rainy sleety weather is supposed to break into better weather. Time to head out for steelies!
It has been the custom of previous basstravaganzas to provide locations, and sometimes even aerial photos, of the places I fish. I don’t mind doing this for bass, or planted trout. The bass arrived here in BC in 1902. They thrive on their own, without stocking or enhancement. Increased fishing pressure in recent years makes them more skittish and harder to catch, but they are still there in healthy populations just as they have for the past century. If my blog happens to encourage a bunch of people to fish for planted trout at some lake I have fished I don’t mind. No matter how many they catch, there will be another hatchery truck coming around soon to dump another few thousand planter trout into the lake.
Wild fish are another matter. Wild fish species – especially anadromous trout and salmon – are under severe pressure throughout BC. Logging, urban development, mining, agriculture, and overharvesting within the province, combined with rapacious over-harvesting on the high seas, have reduced the huge fish runs BC was once famous for to a small fraction of their original abundance. Many runs in many watersheds are now extinct. I do not want to use the internet to lead people by the ring in their nose to remnant pockets of wild fish. Therefore, after deliberation with the executive board of Basstravaganza, and extensive consultation with Trout Fishing in America Shorty, it has been decided that in the event that the basstravaganza should run into wild salmonids NO LOCATIONS OR DIRECTIONS WILL BE PROVIDED. The waters fished will not be named, but instead will be referred to as X (for Nameless) Lake, X River, X Creek, etc. If you too want to find these rare and gorgeous fish, find them on your own.
The steelhead are the same species as the common rainbow trout which have been transplanted all over the world, and raised in fish farms for sale in supermarkets. The adults lay their eggs in the gravel riffles of a stream, and the juveniles spend a year or 2 rearing in their native creek or river. If there is a lake in the system they will often rear in the lake. When they reach "smolting" size (usually around 6-8") they must make a decision. Some will remain as "ordinary" rainbow trout to spend their entire lives in freshwater in their native watershed. Others will "smolt", and drift down the river into the ocean. Here they will spend a year or 2 or more ranging around the N Pacific. Then, as mature adults, they will return to the stream where they were born. After a couple years of chomping on herring and squid these are big fish now, dwarfing their cousins who remained in fresh water.
They will spawn in late winter or early spring.
In some watersheds that have deep pools or lakes along the river, the adult steelhead will return to freshwater in late summer or early fall, and then remain in the lake or river all winter, eating very little, until they spawn. These are called "summer runs". In all systems (unless already driven to extinction by humans) there are "winter runs" of fish that ascend the rivers in late winter. The fish will remain in freshwater until they select a good riffle after a good rain, scour out nests (called "redds") with their tails, and then lay and fertilize the eggs. Unlike salmon, all steelhead do not die after they spawn. Many survive the extreme rigors of spawning, head back downstream to the ocean as "kelts", and may return to their natal streams again in another year or two, as very big steelhead.
March 5
I am targeting 2 watersheds on this trip. Both have lakes along the mainstem river. On March 5 I drive across the island in the dark in a driving rainstorm, heading to places where I caught steelhead in my previous lifetime. Dawn finds me on the shore of X Lake, under a dazzling blue sky. Fishing is best on the smaller streams just after a good rain, as the water is dropping and clearing. In this case, that means getting up at dawn and putting on my waders, but I have other priorities. I spend the morn sitting in my portable lounge chair near a big fire, drinking coffee with a shot of OP rum, eating fresh-grilled steak while my mind tumbles over ancient memories.
I can’t fish this morn. Too many memories swirling, like a big rapids in a flood. I first fished X River in late summer of 1971, when I was a political refugee from the US, living in a plastic shack on an ocean beach. I camped on this spot one winter in the 80’s, while I was employed as a cedar block cutter in this valley. I know something is different, then figure out what it is. When I camped here I could look out all over the lake from this spot and wqtch trout rise, but now there are 30 foot trees grown up all around the shore. You know you are getting really old when you can’t recognize your old campsites because there is a forest grown up around them since you were there last. Thousands of truckloads of old growth timber have been hauled out on this road since I was here last. There are big campgrounds and resort communities here now. Will there be any steelhead left in these valleys?
By afternoon I am recovered from nostalgia enough to finally put on my waders and drive up to the creek. Spring comes early to the west coast, where it never gets hot, but also never gets really cold. The salmonberry leaves are already sprouting.
And so are the elderberry bushes. Spring has sprung!
The horrific clearcut logging that occurred in this valley in the late 1900s trashed this stream, and many others on the W coast. Without the roots of the giant trees to hold the soil in place, the torrential rains that occur every winter washed megatons of mountainside down into the streams. The loggers clearcut right to the banks of the streams. Without stabilization from the big trees, the banks caved in, and the entire valley bottom was smothered in gravel washed down from landslides. Another generation of trees has taken hold now, and the frenzied greed of ripping down the old growth has moderated somewhat. But it will be at least a century before this stream returns to a shadow of its former fish habitat. X Creek is much wider, and much shallower now, than it was 100 years ago.
Alders are growing up along shore, and will eventually help stabilize the fragile gravel cutbanks.
For as long as I can remember there was a deep hole beneath an abandoned logging bridge. But, as I learn from a few fellow steelheaders who happen by, the final log in the bridge fell into the creek last fall. Just a deep hole here now.
Used to be a great spot, but I get no bites after a couple hours of wading. Should have been here at dawn, instead of drinking rum & coffee by the campfire.
So I will head out to check another watershed. In spite of the billions of board feet of cedar, fir and hemlock that have been harvested around here, there is still a lot of untouched old growth left, and some stupendous viewscapes looking up into the fresh snow on the jagged ridge tops.
I make it in to the bridge over the X1 River, where the water is dropping and clearing as the weather changes. The big steelhead have already powered thru many big rapids to get to this pool, where they like to rest before tackling the challenging falls upriver.
You can barely see a big one, hanging absolutely stationary above a big boulder in midstream.
If fish could talk: "Stop throwing that funky spoon around my pool. I am smarter than you and I am not going to bite it!"
Cannot linger, for I am trying to see if I can get all the way up to X1 Lake before dark. Where I have never been for at least 20 years. Around sunset I get there, and drive past into the upper valley which was pristine old growth when I was here last, now massively clearcut. I find a little spur road that leads to the lake. There is a place where I can launch the pontoon. The steelies like to hang out in the lake, relax, and socialize before the impending spawn. The best spots are of course, the inlet where the river enters the lake, and the tailout where it exits. Tomorrow morn I will mount the electric motor on the pontoon and explore these spots.
March 6
Yesterday afternoon I was lounging in my chair getting my first suntan of 2013. But tonite a cold front is coming thru, and up here amongst the snow capped peaks it means business. I have a tent, but I decide to remain in the Volvo Hotel where I have a heater if I need one. Good move. By 2 AM my windshield is totally frosted in ice – inside and out. I am forced to wimp out and start the car engine, and burn precious gas to stay warm. Was planning to set up the boat in the dark, and leave at the crackodawn. But I get up to pee at dawn and it is bitter cold. Rocks the size of my fist sitting 3" above the ground, pushed up by crystals of last nite’s frost. Cannot head out in the pontoon boat in this cold, so I wimp out again, turn on the car heater, and crawl back into my sleeping bag. Suddenly, around 7 AM, I hear a vehicle. I know immediately what it is. After over 20 years of fantasizing returning to fish the tailout of X1 Lake, some local yokels have driven in with a boat. They are going to beat me to my spot, sit on it all day long, and pound it to death. I walk down to the water to confirm, tho I don’t need to. There is no other reason for them to be here. And I am right. As they launch then tell me it was -7C when they left wherever they came from. How cold is it up here? As they head out to fish the tailout I struggle to make a fire and finally manage to boil a pot of coffee.
Around 9:30 I finallythaw out enough to start getting my act together. The pontoon boat is still covered in ice.
I undo the tie-down straps, but the pontoons are frozen to the top of the car! I finally get the boat, motor, battery and all the gear packed down to the water.
Only to discover a drastic mistake. I need a small piece of 2 x 4 as a spacer for the motor mount, and I left it at home. Cannot use the motor. Must use the oars. I row out. Trolling a croc spoon, looking for the bay that leads to the lake outlet. Will the yokels be parked there? After rowing a ¼ mile and passing 2 bays I see a bay that looks like it might lead to the tailout. The steep rocky banks change to a broad shallow flat. Suddenly, even tho I have not caught at steelhead in at least 15 years, this spot FEELS fishy. I stop rowing and spin the pontoon around to admire the view.
The lake is a sheet of glass, reflecting towering snow capped peaks. The tea colored water is clear enough to read a newspaper on the bottom at 8 ft. Only thing missing are the rings of giant fish swirling on the surface. Within seconds a big fish swirls right in front of the pontoon. Can this be real?
I throw the croc spoon all over the flat in front of me, but get no bites, so I creep forward. When I get to the spot where the fish rose I look over to my left and – jumpin jilligers! - I am staring face to face with trout almost as long as my arm. Born in this river, reared in this lake, recently returned from – perhaps – the Bering Strait. The fish is skittish but not afraid, gliding slowly over the flats like an anadromous torpedo.
Over the next hour I will spend more time with my camera than with my fishing rods. My cheap camera is fine for the limited purposes of taking scenery shots for the basstravaganza, but I know from frustrating experience what to expect. I can point it right at a school of huge fish, and all I end up with is a blurry shot of surface glare. I need a polarized lens. The pics I took only give a hint at what my eyes saw, but they are still better than words. Big fish in little water – my favorite!
The big buck watches me take its picture a half dozen times. Then I put the camera down and pick up a rod. I throw my single barbless hook spinner out past the fish, and begin retrieving on a course that will intercept him. As the flashy lure approaches, the big trout glides over and begins swimming parallel with it, spinning blade inches from its eyeball. Not gonna bite, so I stop suddenly and let the lure flutter and sink towards the bottom. The big steelie lunges at the spinner, then stops an inch away, turns and glides past my boat, looking me right in the eye, vibing out loud and clear: "Not gonna fool me with that weak shit, boss!"
Ahead is a deep channel with another flat on the opposite site. A couple more big torpedoes are cruising the flat there. And 4 more over there! And a romantic couple coming at me out of deeper water.
They are stunning to watch in real life, but almost impossible to make out in my crappy pics.
These are not rinkydink hatchery steelhead. Most are in double digits, and some probably pushing 20 lbs.
I throw the spinner way out. There is a pack of fish between me and the lure. They cannot miss seeing it. I begin cranking the spinner toward them, but the first fish up on the flat sees it and immediately charges after it. I can see it open its mouth and gulp the lure. I slam back on the rod, but nothing happens. My crappy drag has unwound, again, this time down to zero! Cannot set the hook. I reel the lure in further, and another big torpedo charges and gulps it, then spits it out when I cannot set the hook. Panicking now! Adreneline overload, heart beating like a machine gun. Once in a lifetime experience. Fumbling with the drag as big fish surround my fluttering lure and attack at random. I end up enticing the entire school to follow the spinner back to my boat, but cannot begin to get a hookup. Surrounded by a dozen big fish now, looking down between my legs in 6 – 8 ft of water, 8 lber there, 10 lber under my left foot, 12 lber under my right foot. My spinner wobbles near the bottom as I fumble with the drag, with about 8 big fish arranged around it like spokes on a wheel, occasionally taking a half hearted chomp at the weird red and silver trinket. Finally a huge fish gets mad and makes a giant boil, maybe even tries to take a chomp out of my left pontoon.
Never seen steelhead this wild. Like pirhanas. I can see the headlines tomorrow: "Steelhead fisherman attacked and eaten alive at X1 Lake!" Should have put the rod down and photographed this amazing event. But I am too focused on getting the reel set up correctly again.
By the time the adrenaline rush subsides to where I can think clearly enough to reset the drag, and I am ready to cast again, the school has finished checking me out and has headed back away from the boat. I see one way up on the opposite flat, and throw out past it. It turns and charges the spinner immediately – chomp! But this time I have the drag set, even if it is just on my smaller rod with only 10 lb line. This fish is 10 lbs at least, and the bottom is full of sunken logs and branches. After 2 screeching runs and 2 big jumps it suddenly feels like I am snagged, and the fish jumps again, but over in a different direction. Turns out this fish is not a fan of catch & release. Too impatient, and it has decided to release itself before coming in to the pontoon boat to meet me. Snagged off the spinner on the stalk of an emerging lily pad, and headed out to tell all his buddies about the evil red spinner.
In the process of tearassing all over the flats and a few crashing splattering jumps, this fish has spooked every steelhead within a football field distance around. I wait a bit, and then start throwing the croc. The fish are still around. I can see them. But all the action has made them wary, and now they refuse to bite. At the far end of the opposite flat I finally find a couple of hot fish, and one bolts over and jumps the croc. Spectacular to watch in this clear water. Must get this on video some day! This one is smaller, maybe 7 lbs? Looks like a hen from the pic? It did not manage to snag me off on a lily pad, and is overmatched against my 8 ½ ft steelhead rod with 15 lb line. Soon the fish swims in – reluctantly – to pose for a picture.
One quick flip with the longnose pliers and the single hook slips out. The pretty girl heads back to her admiring potential boyfriends with a good story, and a warning not to chase the red & silver croc.
These 2 fish have ripped up the flats like a drag race in a library. I keep fishing for a while, but nothing will bite again here for a while, so I row along until I can see down the arm towards the lake outlet into the X1 River. Sure enough, the yokels are anchored in the tailout, where they have been since sunup. It is after noon by now, and they will sit on this spot and pound it all day. Not my style, so I head back to the car and load out. Must come back here again some time, with the motor on the pontoon boat, and no locals bombing the good spot …
On the way back out I stop by the lake where I has coffee yesterday morn. The first salmonberry blossoms of the year are blooming.
Sign of an early spring. Time to get the bass gear ready! For at least 20 years it has been my custom to eat the first salmonberry blossom I see. They have a little nectar cup at the bottom, and are actually quite sweet.
This gives you the energy you need to battle giant steelhead.
On the way back home I make a side trip, trying to get in to another lake where I have never been, and legendary for its big native RB trout and migratory steelhead.
The road I am on crosses over a washed out creek bed – a classic illustration of massive erosion triggered by clearcut logging. Once you get away from the rolling lowlands along the E coast of Vancouver Island, almost the entire landscape is steep, and subject to torrential rainstorms every winter. The only thing that hold the soil onto the steep slopes is the root systems of the big trees. Clearcutting kills all these root networks, and also increases peak runoff. Sometimes the mountainside just lets go. Here you can see where a creek that was perhaps 2-3 m wide for millenia has blown out in spectacular fashion, morphed into a boulder strewn gully 10 times that width. Maybe 1,000 years of natural erosion happening in one day here, and tons of rock and silt scoured out of the mountainside and dumped into the watershed below. It is the anadromous salmon and trout that live and lay their eggs in the streams at the bottom of the valleys – which is where all this eroded material usually ends up. (Not in the case of this gully, which dumps into a huge lake) Multiply this kind of erosion by thousands of mountainsides around Van Isle, and you can see why it is a struggle for wild fish to survive here.
*****
I am looking forward to some great steelhead trips, and early season bass fishing. But the weather settles in to bitter and miserable cold low pressure center squatting in the Gulf of Alaska and spraying all of Van Isle with continuous icy mist. Here is a classic infrared satellite image that pretty much says it all for March 2012. The huge vortex swirl W of Haida Gwaii is a stationary low pressure center, rotating counter-clockwise, and driving wet cold air up against the mountians of Van Isle and the mainland, which turns to rain (orange) as it is lifted over the mountains. Multiply this image by 31 days, and you have pretty much explained the month of March.
See blog entry: The Chenoid Vortex
There is another way into the X2 Lake I tried to reach, along sea level. Longer and more rugged, but less snow. I wait almost a week for the best weather available. Just a light drizzle here in Nanaimo. I am taking the pontoon w/electric motor, plus camping gear. There is rumored to be a free campground and boat launch at X2 Lake, if you can get there.
After an hour on the hwy I find the potholed gravel logging road heading out to X2 Valley. But already a steady rain by the time I get to the ocean. The M.V. Uchuck, carrying cargo, tourists and kayakers, is sailing down the inlet thru the mist, as she has for decades.
The poor Volvox has hauled the Bullship all over N America without complaint. But it has never been asked to go this far on a road this bad. Must go slow over the big holes and boulder heads, and hope the car is still in one piece tomorrow. I finally get to the bay at the mouth of X2 River.
I would like to drive up to the top end, where the road is near the lake, and there is a campground. The closest place where the road approaches the lake along the bottom end is here. Not an easy place to launch a boat.
But I have no business being in this valley in this car in this weather. This is how tourists end up becoming statistics. So I reluctantly turn back and limp home, without launching the boat or making a cast.
This proves to be a good move, as the weather turns even colder. Hard freeze every nite in Nanaimo. Massive snowpack all over Van Isle except the banana belt eastern lowlands. Not that long ago, only 12.000 years – or about 6 lifespans for a giant old cedar in the X2 Valley – Nanaimo and Victoria were covered by glacial ice a kilometer thick. And if the weather doesn’t warm up, we might be in that same situation in a few more weeks. We finally get a partly sunny day, and I try another trip into the X2 Valley, but there is deep snow before I even get to the ocean.
During the rest of March I try a couple local lakes for trout, but it is cold wet & foul. No bites. Only for a few hours do we see anything resembling sun, and only for a few hours does the temp get over 50F. This while eastern Canada is setting records with 80F + temps. Only item of interest is that I purchased an underwater TV rig for $80 at a clearance sale. It works quite well in clear water.
March 25
Finally on March 25, after the coldest most miserable March I can remember, I head out with the pontoon again. Gonna try Spider Lake for trout and early season bass, then head across the island to see if I can get into X1 Lake again. I get to Spider in early afternoon. It is gusty and cloudy and cold, but not bad compared to the most of the weather this month. No motors allowed here, so I paddle out and troll flies. No bites for me, but the other fishermen on the lake have been catching some. I have one rod rigged with my ubiquitous black yum worm, which I occasionally throw over gravel points. Bingo – first bass of the year!
Back on the road, rain turned to sleet now, heading W along Sproat Lake, lots of snow beside the hwy here, only 50m above sea level. I have no snow tires. Must get over Sutton Pass before this sleet turns to snow. Sutton Pass is only 200m above sea level, but surrounded by towering peaks. The storms rolling in from the Pacific are forced over the high spine of Van Isle here, and the big peaks rip the guts out of the clouds, spilling prodigious amounts of snow. Here is a pic from the return trip the next day.
The snowbanks are higher than the pontoon on top my car, and it is almost April! Will I even be able to get into N Lake? If I get in, will I be able to get out? I don’t want to chance it tonite, so I park along the gravel road and sleep in the Volvo Hotel until dawn.
The morn brings steady drizzle mixed with sleet. I head out on the ½ hr drive up to the lake, stopping occasionally to throw the driest looking slabs of potential firewood into the back of the car. Dry wood is a relative term here, where they may get a foot a rain in a couple days. But luck is with me, and the road is snow free. When I get to the boat launch – the only place where the road comes near X1 Lake – the clouds break open and a mysterious bright yellow disc appears in the sky. It is a classic scene – mirror smooth mountain lake surrounded by towering snow clad peaks. No one else for miles around. Now is the time I should get out and fish. Instead, I start a fire, get out my port-a-chair, brew up a hot cup of coffee, and take my time getting the pontoon, motor, battery and fishing gear set up. Then I hear the rumble of a truck.
I know what this means. Just like last time, some locals yokels are going to jump on my spot – where I have not been for 20 years – and pound it to oblivion before I get there. But not this time. Turns out it is 2 trucks from Thornton Creek Hatchery, 3 guys, and 125,000 salmon.
There are boiling rapids and big falls between the lake and the ocean. All 5 species of Pacific salmon are present here, along with resident and anadromous rainbow/steelhead and cutthroat trout. Steelhead are great leapers, and have the best success at making it up into the lake. The giant Chinook salmon – backbone of the lucrative sport and commercial fisheries – have a hard time leaping the falls. So the hatchery crews harvest a few adults each fall, raise their eggs in the hatchery over winter, and feed the fry in the hatchery until spring. Then they truck the fry up to the lake and rear them in floating pens for another couple months before releasing them into the lake.
Here they are loading fish from the aerated tank on the truck onto a floating raft. Then they tow the raft up to their floating net pens, anchored in the lake.
I chat with the hatchery guys, load up a rum & coffee into my thermal mug, and head out. First I stop at the flats where I fished last time. No fish rising today. I throw a spinner on 10 lb line, with my smaller rod. Hard to throw the lure out far enough with this rig in this clear shallow water, but when you get a bite you can usually see the fish hit. The fish are still here. Not as many, and quite skittish today. 4 times I watch big fish charge the spinner, but they will not commit. OK. Fine. I will go somewhere else and find one that wants to get its picture taken. I will head down to the Steelhead Alley.
Steelhead Alley (aka the tailout of N Lake)
…they get to the tailout. Over the last rapids and into the lake. In the slick where the lake slides over into the rapids below the big fish linger, flirt, roll and frolic. Made in the shade now. No more rapids, no more high jumping over falls. All that is left to do is drift around the lazy current and wait for the right significant other to swim by. And don’t get snapped up by the eagles and ospreys lurking in the dead tops of the big cedars along shore.
Starting to rain now, and like yesterday at Spider, I have no rain jacket with me. Should have gone out first thing when I got here, and the weather was nice. Then I am stunned by what I see. Have not been to this spot for at least 20 years, a true sacred pilgrimage, and when I get there ……
THE !#&%$&*)$^&!?! LOGGERS ARE CLEARCUTTING THE PLACE!!!
Fresh clearcut along the tailout of X1 Lake
The logging industry in BC is made up of amazingly clever, diligent, hard working people. Unfortunately there is one small problem that confronts them: They would log their mother’s grave and shit on the Mona Lisa if they could make a buck doing it.
The entire N side of the tailout is freshly felled. Giant west coast old growth. Laid out flat, ready to be dragged up to the road and off to the mills. After all the logging wars in the 80s and 90s it has come to this. Riparian protection – always something of an oxymoron in BC – is reduced to a farce here. A "leave strip" (i.e. a blowdown strip) one or 2 trees deep is all they leave standing. These shoreline trees, unstable at the best of times and prone to falling into the lake, have always been backed up by a hillside of giant timber behind them. Without the big trees blocking the wind this pathetic strip is almost sure to succumb to the wild W coast storms and blow down in the next few years. (I checked the marine weather forecast for W Coast Van Isle when I got back: 70 mm (about 3") of rain predicted over nite, with storm to hurricane force SE winds. A typical day in these parts.)
The developers have even put up a sign.
Along the back edge of the cut, a giant cathedral top old growth cedar, ribboned around the butt, towers over its fallen comrades. This tree may be 1,000 years old. Spared – for the moment - from the chainsaw’s blade by a few decimal places on a GPS unit.
Unlike salmon, which die after spawning, many steelhead survive, head back down over the falls to the ocean, and live to return a second or even third time. And of course, they get bigger every time. These multiple year "old growth" spawners tend to disappear along with the old growth timber that once covered their watershed. A first time spawner might weigh 5-8 lbs, a second time spawner might weigh 10-12 lbs, etc. There are certainly fish in the 20 lb range in this system. Like the giant cedar above the clearcut - totems of a wild ecosystem we will not see again.
I slip down the alley, inching closer and closer to steelhead valhalla.
The pontoon is like magic for this scene. A touch of a finger and I can change thrust and direction, hold myself still and silent in the current, creeping closer and closer to the swirling frisky steelies ranging over the tailout, throwing the little red spinner out as far as I can. Only a matter of time.
The fish hits on the left side of the tailout, just above the rapids, exactly where I could have predicted it at any time over the past 20 years. Dives hard for the left bank and then erupts, cartwheeling bungee jumping catapulting all the way across the tailout to the opposite bank, more out of the water than in. Then settles down for a slugfest. This is a pretty even matchup – 10 lb fish vs 10 lb line, in a current. If the fish runs down the tailout into the river it is gone. Cannot stop it. But it heads back up instead, and after a lot of persuasion, reluctantly agrees to pose for a pic.
Horrors – can’t find my needlenose pliers. Easy to flip the hook out with pliers, but hard to do it by hand.
Time to speed back to my car before I freeze to death, by which time it has stopped raining. I throw the campfire back together, dry out my wet butt, and boil up another cup of coffee. The hatchery truck arrives with another load of chinooks. That makes ¼ million. I head back out, and start throwing a croc spoon with the big rod over the bay mouth bars, where I had follows earlier this morn. No bites until a titanic hit at long range. A couple thrashes on the surface and a couple short runs, and I manage to get the brute turned around. This is a giant fish, trident class sub, 16 lbs? 18 lbs? Shakes loose before I get it near the boat. The perils of single barbless fishing. But much better than breaking a trophy fish off and leaving a triple barbed hook in its jaw.
I head back to the tailout. It is boiling with hot fish. But they are skittish, and will not bite another spinner. These fish would be suckers for other, more sophisticated techniques like drift fishing or wet flies. But today I prefer to target the visually challenged and mentally impaired section of the steelhead community. Turning to steady sleet now. The mountains all around the lake are covered in fresh snow.
The weather looks rather gloomy.
With the fly rod?
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