Lake Report: Big Fish Time

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It was back to the lake in the wan light of October. The road was still busy with deer hunters, but I didn't hear any shots today. The deer, the ones left after the weekend offensive, have made themselves scarce.

I went back to the south end. I was the only guy on the lake for awhile, but three separate fishermen pulled into the south campground and set up camp while I was there.
I took the float tube again. It's much easier than the canoe to maneuver down to the water's edge. I still haven't repaired the slow leak in the right air bladder, and it appeared to lose more air tonight than it has for awhile. So it may be that the canoe will accompany me the rest of the way on this journey to season's end. That may be OK for another reason: it's a little warmer sitting high and dry in the canoe.

I trolled over to the far side with a big wooly bugger, and had a few hits from small fish, too small, apparently, to hook up. But I had a plan: to hit the bank with the Bomber to see if I could raise a big fish.

I worked methodically down to this rocky stretch. It drops off quickly here, and I thought it might give me my best chance. Sure enough, I saw a rise right up against the rocks.

I dropped the Bomber in tight, gave it two strips, and a streak of yellow came up and hammered it. A very nice Brown.

You'll notice I was able to net it. After the last trip, when I dropped my net into the lake, I dug through my fishing stuff and found this old net. I was glad to have it.

By then the breeze had dropped and fish were rising out in the center of the lake, so I moved out and tried the Bomber there. No go.

There were some very good fish working, lazily rising, their big dorsals waving in the air. It's big fish time, as they pack in nature's bounty in preparation for the long winter. It appeared that they were picking up emerging midges. But, instead of tying on a little emerger, I tried a series of surface flies, sure that I could entice one of those dorsals to come up and take.

It didn't happen--not this time. Sometimes it does, and when it works, it's genius. When it doesn't work, like tonight, it's pure hubris.

The big fish went down after awhile, leaving the surface to the little fish, and I caught a couple of them on the cinnamon ant.

It was good to see the big fish up, and next time I promise I'll tie on a little emerger. I'm sure you'd like to see one of those big Rainbows in the rosy glow of dusk.

Come to think of it, so would I.

Off To School

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Kim usually gets the kids off to school (I'm on bedtime duty) but she left early today for an all day training. So I got up with the sun to get them on their way.

They usually ride with Kim, but it was bus time this morning.

I don't know why Lidia was chasing Jeremiah. Could be any of a hundred reasons.

The bus nears, and the cat knows it. Isaiah waits with Lidia. Jeremiah had gone up the road to wait with his friends. I don't know why Isaiah and Jeremiah dressed alike.

Off they go, and the cat thinks, "What am I going to do here all day without them? With just him?"

He doesn't like me. Poor cat.

Lake Report: Third Day In a Week

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I got back to the lake for a third time, in keeping with my intention to make the most of these last days of the season. I took the float tube this time.

It was a Saturday, and it was the opening day of rifle season for deer, so the campgrounds were full of deer hunters.

There was constant traffic on the road--cars, trucks, four wheelers, and motorbikes. A pall of dust hung over the lake. Now and again I'd hear the pop of a rifle up on the ridge, and then the echo like thunder rolling up and down the valley.

It was calm, and fish were rising, but I managed to catch only small fish. I had tied up some small deer hair caddis since I had seen some on the water the last time I was there. But on this day the fish ignored my new flies. As often happens, I had succeeded in outsmarting myself rather than the fish.
But they took the CDC caddis, and a black leech trolled at dusk.

The fish quit rising before dark. Maybe it was the weight of the cold air settling over the lake that put them down. I stayed relatively warm--I had dressed for a cold evening--but my fingers were numb by the time I loaded up and headed for home.
Last year there was snow on the ridges at season's end. We'll see what's in store this year.

Lake Report: Paradox and Random Events

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I went back to the lake last week for a second day in a row, and the lake was just as it has always been, and completely changed.

It's a paradox: two truths, equally true, yet seemingly contradictory. Some people believe in fairies; I believe in paradox, and I mean belief in its root meaning: "letting be." I used to drive myself crazy trying to reconcile paradoxes until I learned to simply accept them.

Fishing--or, more precisely, the fish--teach you that pretty quickly. You simply can't catch fish at will. What works one day doesn't work the very next day. You accept that, or you take up golf.

But the human race in general has never been good with paradox. Somehow we must make things be the way we want them to be rather than accept them the way they are. So we damn the unpredictable and uncontrollable, and thereby dam rivers.

We invented time to cast control over the paradoxical universe, to explain rationally the changes we see around us and so claim control of them. Thus the changes I saw in the lake in the space of twenty-four hours were due to the passage of time. So, too, the changes I see between the lake in Spring and the lake in Fall.

But the concept of time is based on linearity, and there is nothing linear about the lake or the universe we live in. Chaos theory gets closer to the truth of things: change simply pops up here, there, and everywhere, seemingly random and unconnected events, which yet form a pattern, that--pattern within countless patterns--forms the whole of what is. Change doesn't flow like a river; it bubbles up like springs, creating the new in the midst of the old. The natural world, like the universe, isn't going somewhere; it's expanding, building on itself, becoming what it always was, and is, and will be.

And it's happening right under my canoe. For example:

The wind was blowing hard from the south, so I went to the south end where I haven't been in awhile, and where, on windy days, there is some shelter.

I cast the Bomber into the riffles. It had worked great the day before, but not this day. It swam back to me each time rejected and forlorn. So I tied on the CDC caddis and hooked one little trout.

More fish were rising farther back in the south end just where the riffles gave way to calmer water, so I paddled over.

There were some good fish there, rising lazily and confidently. As I stripped in the CDC caddis for another cast this Brown took it. I was glad I had remembered the net.

I stayed with the caddis and caught a few more small fish.

And then this beauty.

It was getting cooler and the quick slide to darkness had begun when I hooked another Brown. I believe it was the fish of the day, but as I reached for the net I noticed it was gone. It must have slipped off my lap into the water as I was trying to handle that big Rainbow. I often wondered if it would float.
No.
When I attempted to lift the Brown into the canoe the fly came out and he was gone. But not forgotten.

So here's the quiz:
     1. How many random events can you find in the above account?
        (Answer: All of them.)
     2. How would you describe the whole formed by the totality of these random events?
        (Answer: A great time on the water.)

Lake Report: Final Countdown Begins

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October is almost half over, and I think we can say that the final countdown of the season has begun. I've had to struggle with a busy schedule to get to the lake recently, and, once you let the balance tip, once you stumble in your pace, it's amazing how something you love, something that provides a center for your life, quickly slides down on the priority list.

Then there's the matter of letting your eyes wander and losing focus. I admit I was lured away by the Henry's Fork, and even my own home river has tempted me with swirling Chinooks and secretive Steelhead. But the big trips are over, and my river can wait.

So I hereby vow to tip back the balance, step up the pace, and be on the water often enough to become once again a central character in the denouement of this season's story.

Today was a good start. I loaded up the canoe and accouterments and made my getaway up over the ridge and down to lakeside. It was clear, sunny, and warm. It was also windy. I started in my shirtsleeves, but when the sun dipped behind the mountain that summery wind began to blow fall.

I set up in the channel and threw the Bomber again and was delighted to see fish swirling at it, and even more delighted to have this pretty good fish take it with a vengeance. I had just decided to let off stripping and let it drift with the wind, and this fish preferred a sitting target.
I blew on up to the upper lake and kept up with the Bomber out in open water. Yes, it's open, but it's not that deep here, and trout lurk in the weed forests just out of sight below.
I exercised the Bomber options: I let it sit, and I stripped it. This Brown liked the strip.

Here's a good example of the Browns I was catching last Sunday. (Again, I didn't want to have him on the deck. I forgot my net today--it's on the float tube--and he wouldn't stay on my lap for a photo.) This one's not as big as last week's fish, but he's just as beautiful.

I really need to tie up a couple new Bombers. This one's getting a little raggedy.

The wind backed off, but there was a persistent breeze throughout the rest of the evening. A few small fish tried to make a rise of it, but, maybe due to the rain we had over the weekend, the lake was subdued.

I caught a small fish on an ant, and lost another when he succeeded in exchanging himself for a clump of weeds.

I paddled in with the cold breeze in my face, fish smell on my hands, and a settled feeling in my mind. I loaded up and dodged cows and deer and made it home as the Big Dipper was just coming into its own in the new dark.

I left the canoe on the rack, and everything packed.

Football Report: The Boys Do Well

No wins tonight, but some much improved play.
Isaiah had a hard week. He was in the coach's doghouse for maybe not playing hard enough in the last game. So he was ready tonight to show what he had.

He got his chance.

Isaiah also played harder as linebacker on defense, and he kicked an extra point. He almost kicked the extra point for his own touchdown, but it was blocked.

Jeremiah, meanwhile, has had to sit out two games because of a concussion. So he was eager and happy to suit up for the game tonight.

His shining moment was this catch--and maybe surviving some tough hits and getting up for more.

The boys felt good after their play, the teams were in a good mood as they piled onto the team bus for the drive back home --and even the coach had a smile on his face.

Lake Report: October Brown

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Things are way too busy, and have been for awhile. I have had to wrest fishing time out of my overloaded schedule, as I did last Sunday evening. Symptomatic, perhaps, of my hurry to get away for awhile, I forgot the camera.

At first I felt a little naked without it. Then I remembered how quickly one can get blissfully lost in the process of fishing when that's all you're doing.

It was windy, so I threw and stripped big flies. I started with a Henry's Fork Hopper, and had a good fish come up out of the weeds in the channel and break it off. That was on 5X; I tied a Stimulator on with 4X.

Out in open water I caught a couple of small Rainbows, then things slowed down. I tied on the Bomber, and things picked up. I caught two nice Browns, one pushing 18 inches, I bet.

At dusk I made my way back to the channel near my take out and caught a third Brown. This was a good fish, maybe going twenty. I wondered if it was the same fish that broke me off earlier. Maybe not, but I decided that fish had likely been a Brown, too.

All that brown inspired me to pull out some photos of five memorable Browns from the past. The last one in this hall of fame may be the best fish I've caught to date in this lake.

I saw a blog a few years ago that had a photo of this lake, and an account of a fishing trip here. The author was being cagey; he didn't reveal the true name of the lake. He called it Brown Trout Lake.

Good name.

Millions of Midges

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We experienced a natural phenomenon the other evening when millions of midges came floating up in clouds from the river. We're a good quarter mile from the water.

Wish I could have popped down to the river to see what was happening there, but I had to content myself with this view.

They look big enough in the photos to be caddis, but they were midges.
Pretty. I'll think about this the first time the snow flies.

Lake Report: Reconciliation

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Let's face it, I sorely neglected the lake in September. I made only one trip, way back on September 4. Whatever happened to September, anyway?

So it behooved me to get back there and make amends. I pumped up the float tube and threw the pump in the van just in case the slow leak had sped up any since I last used it. It held up well.

The river is up, the lake is down, way down.

The most obvious effect is that castable shoreline is reduced. I still started with a Stimulator and worked the steeper banks and the edges of the weed beds. Not much shaking; maybe I missed the height of hopper time.

I did finally get this fish to take. Or maybe the lake finally forgave me and gave it up. Good to be back in business at the lake.
The afternoon wind settled and the fish started rising. I didn't see anything all evening except tiny light midges. No mays, no caddis, no nothing.
So I tied on an ant. It was the same one I clipped off when I tied on the Stimulator, the same one that was on my rod when I came home from the Henry's Fork. It still had some mojo left.

I caught a few small fish, and then this nice Rainbow fell for it. He was a runner, and ripped line off my reel three times before I netted him.
The rises increased as evening deepened, but the interest in the ant faded as the fish locked onto the midges. I decided to take some photos of the rises as I let the ant float. So I lay down the rod and took a couple of shots, but the rises were way out and disappeared quickly.

Then there was a nice one pretty close. Just as I snapped the shutter I realized it was on my fly. It was a small fish, but he started to take my rod with him.

I caught six fish all told, not counting the one that took a black leech I was trolling back to the van. I let him get into the weeds, and he finally absconded, with the leech.
It was a good evening at the lake. I think everything's OK between us again.