Today (Cinco de Mayo for the party people) started off with an unease before my feet even hit the floor. Itchy. T gets up about an hour before I do, but it was clear that tension was palpable for both of us. Then, I realized that today was the day where we have reached the precipice. We are at the very top of the roller coaster. We're at the highest point where your stomach and your heart are in your throat and we know that it's going to go downhill fast from here and that we have no control over what will happen. Basically, we're going back to work in Alaska in less than one month and all of the little things that have to be done before we get on the plane actually need to be accomplished. We need a hotel room in Anchorage, an appointment to get the dogs ready to fly, packing, shutting down the house, etc... It has happened every year for ten years and every year it is no less stressful. Anyway the point is, being in the house today would have meant panic attacks all around, so we went to the closest place to fish. Our little place outside of town.
We took the Heat and with the motor restriction on the lake were made to paddle around, which was kind of a fun way to see how well we could cooperate when rowing. For a first time, I think we did pretty well. We rowed around the edges of the lake and realized that it was the clearest that it has been ever, that we've seen. Also, the lily pads were thick, so we were thinking that we were definitely going to see some bass in their usual spots. The hydrilla was growing up from the bottom of the lake making it seem much shallower than it actually is. Aside from the extreme hydrilla growth, the algae was thick. Really it was the thickest I remember seeing and it soon became clear that if we saw anything bass related it would be the cloud of silt they left behind after we floated too close to them with the boat. T blind casted a big mouse pattern into their usual places without a sniff. Then.....the motherfuckin' stockin' truck showed up.
Once when we were fishing Hebo Lake we shared one of the allotted casting platforms with a kid who was spin fishing that had a little bit of a gangsta thing going on. Flat billed hat, inexplicably long t-shirt, and a back pack filled with spinners. He was a cool guy and the image that he was trying to portray didn't fit with a person that was out solo fishing for fun. To each their own. On this particular day, the stocking truck came and his eyes nearly popped from their sockets as he exclaimed, "IT'S THE MOTHERFUCKIN' STOCKIN' TRUCK!" He bailed from our platform to go fish directly next to the firehose of fish coming out of the truck into the water. Since that day and forever from now we feel compelled to shout his words each time we see it.
Anyway, with the bass under heavy cover and still not on beds, we decided to put the beat down on the stockers. They like to hang out at the boat ramp for awhile after they are forcibly jettisoned into their new environment. We paddled over to the ramp where, at this point, it was completely ridiculous for us to be in a boat as we could have made any cast from dry land. We dropped the bow and stern anchor and attempted dry flies for a minute, but they were too stirred up and really had probably never fed for natural bugs on the surface. Eventually we switched to the tried and true tiny indicator with a small pink and white ice cream cone midge. One fly. If you need to (which we did today) you can attach a small split shot to the knot at your tippet connection. Get it out to where the fish are and rope away. I would recommend (as we did today) pinching your barb because unless you intend to keep your limit of these not so tasty treasures, it definitely saves the fishes' faces and makes it that much easier to release them. You definitely don't get as many fish to the boat, but who cares?
I know it looks like he's squishing this fish, but really he just has big hands and it's an 8 to 10 inch stocker trout. The fish is alive for now.
After about 50 fish to the boat and another lap around the lake for good measure we decided to pack it in and considered the afternoon a success in delaying the madness of go time. We did see a couple of recycled steelhead on the last trip around the lake, but spooked them on approach paddling the canoe. A trolling motor would have been preferable for stealth, but we weren't on a mission other than to exit the house. So, the non-mission was accomplished and we can worry about all of that other stuff tomorrow. Maybe we'll go see the stockers again.
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