After
turning a boat into a bathtub last week, we vowed that we would not return to Kawkawa Lake if there is a slightest chance of rain in the forecast. Yesterday Fishersak left a message saying that he would be going today. I looked at the forecast, shower in Vancouver but reasonably nice for Hope. With some convincing, Nina gave it the green light and we left the house this morning at 9:00am.
Along the way, I phoned Fishersak first and was told that Marco and his friends would be joining us too as the saltchuck was blowing too hard for them to take the boat out. I then phoned Nick the master to see if he was taking advantage of the only dry day of the week. He was already at the boat launch. This was turning into another group outing.
We arrived at the launch and was greeted by a friendly cat, sunshine and a glass calm lake. It was looking good. Occasional rises could be spotted. Fishersak and I quickly set up the boats. Nina and I departed from the launch first just before Marco arrived at the launch. We anchored nearby and fished while waiting for Fishersak. It only took a cast before a hungry cuttie grabbed the floating krill. Fishersak approached us soon after and told us some bad news. While getting ready, his backdoor shut itself with the two fly rods still sticking out from the car. Both snapped instantly.
He had to use one of Marco's rod for the trip.
Once we were organized, we motored over to where Nick and his friends were anchoring because, of course, that was where the fish would be.
We anchored, set up one rod with the float rig while having a bottom rig on the other one. There were a few fish rolling on the surface, but definitely not as frequent as last week. It appeared most of the feeding fish were on the bottom, perhaps due to the presence of sunlight. Nick and his friends were having no problem catching them at 40ft deep, but my krill at that depth didn't seem to be so enticing.
It took a good 20 minutes or so before there was a tap on the bottom rod. I hooked it on the following tap. The reflex is always at its sharpest at the beginning of the outing. Second and third fish followed soon after, then the frustration began. Perhaps it was the choppy waves, or the sun glare, we soon found ourselves missing one fish after another one. There were plenty of bites for over one hour and we came up empty handed. Nick, who was anchored nearby, could see how frustrated we were and how funny it was, started teasing us about it. Before the end of the outing, we managed to hooked a couple more, so it was not too bad after all. Despite of the absence of rain, it was still a rather chilly day. The air temperature must have been no more than 5C. By 4:00pm, our toes could not handle so we called it the day.
The most exciting part of today was the size of the fish that we retained. Three of the six kept fish were 13 inches long, while the other three were 11 inches long, same as last week's fish. The longer fish are one year older than the 11 inchers and their girth easily dwarfed the smaller ones. Here is a photo of two of the catches. The top one being the 13 incher while the bottom one being the 11 incher.
One last thing, while taking photos of these two fish back at the floating dock, I decided to wash the bigger one in the water. While doing so, the bigger one slipped out of my hands and instantly sank to the bottom! I let out a scream, Nina and Fishersak came over to see what happened. This is not the first time for this to happen, the
jack coho accident popped up on my mind immediately.
We then tried to scoop it out with the net, without success because the water was too deep.
We kept scooping while Marco and his friends in their boat showed up in the background. They joined in with laughter. Knowing how good Marco is at flossing fish, I handed my fishing rod to him right away. He dropped it down and attempted to hook it. I turned around to see something, turned back, Marco already had it on the line! He gently dragged it up but it fell off the line on the surface. We screamed, Fishersak made a quick scoop with his net, back into the cooler the fish went.
Talk about professional flossing, ahem, snagging service.
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Topic: Kawkawa Lake, March 9th 2010 (Read 3909 times)