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I am always a little nervous when my extended family gets together to celebrate a holiday. You know the movie Christmas Vacation starring Chevy Chase? Well that’s my family, except worse. This year’s Thanksgiving dinner was a doozy. My father drank a litre of white wine before 3:00 pm and dinner was not until 6:00 pm. He chose to ignore my friendly advice to take it easy and by dinner he was inebriated. My father in-law arrived in his F350 dually with Bigfoot camper just after six. He had to park his prized possession in the driveway so as he backed it in he slammed into my father’s car causing extensive damage to the rear. When I informed my father, he yelled, “Oh f*%k off,” and ran outside to see the damage. Well you can imagine what was said. When dinner started people sat in awkward silence. Then, my father started choking on a large piece of turkey. Luckily he managed wash it down with more wine. We made it through dinner. Afterwards my 12 year old son commented, ‘That was brutal.” My father in-law felt so bad I decided I would take him fishing the next day. My dad heard about this but funny enough when we awoke the next day at the crack of dawn he was not able to get up so it was me and my father in-law Bob, who has never held a fly rod. We headed to a small lake off the connector near the Aspen Grove turn off. It was an absolutely beautiful day, warm and sunny with no wind. The colors were spectacular.
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After an hour or so of trolling using a both a sinking and intermediate sinking line with a small green sparkly micro leech and a larger chartreuse colored leech we had several hits but no fish hooked or landed. We fished mostly near the weed beds around the shoals and near drop-offs. We avoided the 35-40 feet of water down the middle of the lake. I had recently attended the BC Outdoors Magazine’s Backroads Tour and heard Tom Johanassen speak about where fish predominantly look for food and suggested we avoid the deeper portions. After another twenty minutes we decided to cross the lake. In about 30 feet of water I hook and land my first fish on the larger chartreuse leech. The fish fought like mad. Several jumps clear of the water made for an exciting battle. The fish was landed and after a quick picture, safely released.
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After another hour or so things were pretty slow so I decided to switch up my full sink line to a larger, but darker green Wolly Bugger. I tied a Gomphus to Bob’s intermediate sink. As we trolled over the deep section again my rod doubles over and it’s fish on. This puppy had some weight to it and peeled a lot of line. On its first run I was into my backing. Then he started to jump and jump. I thought I was going to lose the fish but after a ten minute battle it was in the net.
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Then it was Bob’s turn to land a fish.
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All in all, was a very memorable day. We hooked 10 fish and landed 5 in four hours. If we can just hold off winter a while longer, October is going to be fun.
After an hour or so of trolling using a both a sinking and intermediate sinking line with a small green sparkly micro leech and a larger chartreuse colored leech we had several hits but no fish hooked or landed. We fished mostly near the weed beds around the shoals and near drop-offs. We avoided the 35-40 feet of water down the middle of the lake. I had recently attended the BC Outdoors Magazine’s Backroads Tour and heard Tom Johanassen speak about where fish predominantly look for food and suggested we avoid the deeper portions. After another twenty minutes we decided to cross the lake. In about 30 feet of water I hook and land my first fish on the larger chartreuse leech. The fish fought like mad. Several jumps clear of the water made for an exciting battle. The fish was landed and after a quick picture, safely released.
After another hour or so things were pretty slow so I decided to switch up my full sink line to a larger, but darker green Wolly Bugger. I tied a Gomphus to Bob’s intermediate sink. As we trolled over the deep section again my rod doubles over and it’s fish on. This puppy had some weight to it and peeled a lot of line. On its first run I was into my backing. Then he started to jump and jump. I thought I was going to lose the fish but after a ten minute battle it was in the net.
Then it was Bob’s turn to land a fish.
All in all, was a very memorable day. We hooked 10 fish and landed 5 in four hours. If we can just hold off winter a while longer, October is going to be fun.
