After yesterday's excitment and fishing all day I was in poor shape this morning. My cold was now worse than yesterday, probably because getting damp in the afternoon rain. However I dragged myself out of bed and slipped down to check the river readings on the computer. It showed a jump of about 3 to 4 inches.
Just as I was thinking of returning to the comfort of my bed the Master calls and says he is near the river and will give me a report on how the visibility is in a few minutes.
Around 7:00 I get the word from Nick, "the river is up a bit but fishable". I of course am now wide awake and decide to go and give it a try for a bit. I gather my equipment and am on the road in about 10 minutes with the first stop at Tims of course, the only bright spot so far to the day other than the full moon beaming down between the broken cloud cover.
I reach my fishing area just as daylight begins to break, I am happy to see it does not look like rain for a change. I am amazed there is no fisherman around, only some early morning walkers. As I cross the sidestream I see the visibility is 12 to 18 inches not the best but as Nick says fishable. Besides I have caught fish in these conditions but one has to work harder thats all.
I head to the "root run" but it looks a bit fast to me in the overnight jump in the water so I head to the KE run and spend some time there before moving to try some other spots to no avail.
As I wanted to take the truck load of bottles in from Saturday's cleanup in I decide that would be more profitable. Before I leave the area I stop at the KE run for a few casts. I get a pull down there but not certain what is was, a small twig embedded in the rocks or what. Whatever it was the drennan did not disappear again.
I get home to load the bottles and I see a e-mail from ATS that he is coming up with his friend Dean, we agree to meet at Cookies for lunch. Around the same time I get a call from the Master, he has just taken a nice hatchery doe and of course finished for the day. As he is going to meet bederko for lunch we decide to get together with ATS and Dean. Nothing better than having lunch with some good fishing partners and those that are committed to saving our fish and the environment they live in like ATS is.
ATS who I have just met last Saturday is working hard on the proposed gravel mine on the Chehalis River. He has put a lot of time on this issue and we must support him as much as we can. He has got the ball rolling and a number of other groups are also getting involved all very concerns what this could do to the Chehalis if it did get the go ahead from Government agencies, great work ATS.
After lunch we go our seperate ways, me to take the bottles in, some of the others fishing somehere.
Before we leave Dean shows me some nice roe sacks he has tied up and I bum 4, boy did they look good, better than mine.
I complete the awful job of doing the bottle returns, I do not know how the CVRCC directors always stick me with that job.
Anyway the staff at Encorp always are good as they also appreciate the work the CVRCC and the volunteers do on cleaning up the Chilliwack Vedder River so they pitch in and help do the sorting. We set a record this time as we got a total of $68.65. I give the staff a $10 tip as they save me 30 minutes of time. As well I wanted to try to get back to the river for the last part of the day, in the hope it had cleared up a bit.
As Lew is the CVRCC treasurer I phone him on his cel and see if I can get him the monies. As luck would have it he is just finished fishing so we decide to meet at Fred's to do the exchange.
Lew by the way has had some excellent fishing the last two days with two very nice hatchery fish, one that hit the scales at 13 pounds 6 ounces, a very nice doe. I was very happy for him as Lew works so hard with the rest of the CVRCC directors on the Adopt A River program so he was well rewarded on Sunday and Monday with these two steelhead.
After doing the money transaction at Fred's Lew says " you got to show me where you are catching your fish".
"No problem lets go" is my reply. One thing Lew and I over the years seem to be a lucky charm to each other. This is no lie when we fish steelhead together or near each other I hazard to guess we are into a steelhead 75 percent of the time.
Lew can comment on that later.
Anyway as we head to the KE run we see Toothpick Tom and Chris fishing the "root run". I tell Lew lets go right to the KE run wondering if the two mentioned anglers had been there.
As we slip into the KE run I see the water is much improved from my early morning visit. We start at the top of the run as I have now slipped on one of Dean's deadly roe sacks. I say some thing to the fact to Lew you never know when a fish is going to pull in and we talk about how we bring luck to each other. I am not sure how many casts it was but it was not many and down goes the Maple Leaf drennan float. I truthfully could not believe it and I guess it was a mixture of surprise as well but I firmly set the hook.
As I once again for the sixth time this year feel the thrill of the head shake of a steelhead. I remark to Lew most likely too cockly " there's one Lew" as the steelhead heads downstream. A fellow below does not realize I have a fish on for a bit and on seeing the fish thrashing on top of the water opposite him later tells me " I thought it was a fish chasing my float"
I should have said if it had a Maple Leaf emblem on your float it could very well have been possible.
The fish then head towards me, in quite close and goes to the top of the run. We are fiddling with my camera as I fight the fish but for some reason I can not get it to fire up. When I first get a glimse of it I think it is a hatchery fish but as we get it closer we see it is a wild doe of around 9 pounds.
As I sling the tube off my shoulder I say to Lew " good another for the hatchery". I guide the now tired fish towards shore and we slip her easily into the tube. A much easier job with two people. I notice the hook is in her mouth deeper than usual but thankfully there is no sign of any blood. Lew skillfully and easily extracts the hook and we zip the holding tube shut.
A call to the hatchery and Ron is on his way down to pick her up with the hatchery truck. Lew continues to fish and I visit with Tom for a while always a good fellow to talk to, one of the top rods on the river with many years of fishing the Vedder.
Ron comes and packs the steelhead to the truck as I follow to retrieve the tube after the fish is safely tucked in the tank. I visit for a while with Tom and Barry who gave us the other fish at the end of day yesterday before heading back to find Lew.
As I near the river Lew is coming towards me and motion to me lets go have a coffee. This to me sounded great as why push our luck fishing together, lets save it for another day, another day when we can get out together on our precious Vedder a river that is dear to both our hearts.
Next time it will be Lew's turn to show me his "hot spot" don't you think and before I forget thanks for the assist Dean. I still have 3 of your roe bags left and I hope they work their magic tomorrow as well.
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Topic: Lucky Lew And Dean Assist, Another Journal, Vedder, January 17 (Read 7106 times)