Got back a few days ago from an early May trip to BC for some lake fishing and a meet up with an old friend. In the past my lake fishing has been in the fooling around with trout category while waiting for steelhead opportunities to open up. Nowadays it is more like fooling around with steelhead in between learning to trout fish. On this trip I was schooled in the ways of chironomid fishing and why certain things need to be done at certain times. Two days of intense, college course type instruction with tangible "the proof is in the net" experiences got my confidence meter pegged over to the maximum. My last day I fished solo and these pics are a small sampling of what transpired.
The conditions were that the lake I was at was about two weeks from ice out, where as the lake I was camped at was only a week out. That one could be fishing like gang busters next week when I go back.. Except for the day I moved in there were passing rain showers, snow showers, hail showers, and a little sleet thrown in for good measure. This of course turns the roads into a weird soup wet dust type of mud that just builds up on your truck with every trip. and at a 90 minute drive from camp to lake each way it makes for an expensive car wash in town before heading back.
A single trip to the lake and my clean white truck turned to this:
These pictures are from my last day. I started about an hour and a half earlier than the day before and headed out to the spot where we had success the day before in a blizzard of a hatch - hence my starting a little earlier. Getting close to the spot I saw two boats anchored up there but put my schooling to work. The wind was blowing a different direction today which meant that conditions would be more favorable elsewhere. Elsewhere was where I anchored up. I put the first rod out, then the second. In less than two minutes I had on a double and it pretty much went like that for the next two hours.
The thick hatch of the previous day never really materialized and it was more of a subdued, intermittent type of deal. after a couple of hours it slowed down considerable and I noticed the wind had shifted after the last snow flurry. Good time for a potty break. Getting back out I head for someplace else on the lake that would match the conditions as they were now. I noticed that a boat had moved into my previous spot but I found a good spot and continued bringing fish to the net. for a couple more hours. Around one thirty I decided to call it a day. I still had a ninety minute drive back to camp and the chore of getting ready to head home in the morning.
As I was waiting in line at the border I noticed something moving across the bottom of my windshield - a mouse! little dude scurried over to the passenger side so I turned on the wipers once and he came back to in front of me, looked in at me as if to say wtf! Then scurried back down under the hood. When I got home I set a trap under the hood right next to the sonic deterrent device I installed and caught him that night. So much for the sonic device...It was difficult to keep a straight face when the border guard asked me if I was bringing anything back from Canada. Hope they don't find out and arrest me as a rodent smuggler.
The conditions were that the lake I was at was about two weeks from ice out, where as the lake I was camped at was only a week out. That one could be fishing like gang busters next week when I go back.. Except for the day I moved in there were passing rain showers, snow showers, hail showers, and a little sleet thrown in for good measure. This of course turns the roads into a weird soup wet dust type of mud that just builds up on your truck with every trip. and at a 90 minute drive from camp to lake each way it makes for an expensive car wash in town before heading back.
A single trip to the lake and my clean white truck turned to this:
These pictures are from my last day. I started about an hour and a half earlier than the day before and headed out to the spot where we had success the day before in a blizzard of a hatch - hence my starting a little earlier. Getting close to the spot I saw two boats anchored up there but put my schooling to work. The wind was blowing a different direction today which meant that conditions would be more favorable elsewhere. Elsewhere was where I anchored up. I put the first rod out, then the second. In less than two minutes I had on a double and it pretty much went like that for the next two hours.
The thick hatch of the previous day never really materialized and it was more of a subdued, intermittent type of deal. after a couple of hours it slowed down considerable and I noticed the wind had shifted after the last snow flurry. Good time for a potty break. Getting back out I head for someplace else on the lake that would match the conditions as they were now. I noticed that a boat had moved into my previous spot but I found a good spot and continued bringing fish to the net. for a couple more hours. Around one thirty I decided to call it a day. I still had a ninety minute drive back to camp and the chore of getting ready to head home in the morning.
As I was waiting in line at the border I noticed something moving across the bottom of my windshield - a mouse! little dude scurried over to the passenger side so I turned on the wipers once and he came back to in front of me, looked in at me as if to say wtf! Then scurried back down under the hood. When I got home I set a trap under the hood right next to the sonic deterrent device I installed and caught him that night. So much for the sonic device...It was difficult to keep a straight face when the border guard asked me if I was bringing anything back from Canada. Hope they don't find out and arrest me as a rodent smuggler.
