By We were up early the next morning and back at pike fishing. The plan was to pike fish for the first part of the morning before going back for brunch before heading off to fish for rainbows. Mom slept in but you couldn’t keep the rest of us in bed. We were too excited to sleep. Brooke and I fished together with Drew that morning. They caught a bunch of fish. I caught nothing but I didn’t bother me, I was happy to enjoy the beauty and coolness of the morning. Brooke was fly fishing again. The liter was rubbing blisters on her fingers after over a day of using it so her fingers were wrapped in duct tape. Gloves messed with her ability to feel the fish on the line.
Brunch was a glorious combination of french toast and grilled peaches. There other things too but I can’t remember what they were. Needless to say after a wonderful bruch we were off again. After a short drive, on a road that had actually been cleared by the owner of the lodge, we get over to a distant u-bend in the creek. The day was beautiful and warm. We all tried our hand a bit of fly fishing to catch rainbow trout. Brooke was the best at it, she stood up to mid-thigh just outside of the faster moving water while casting into it. She pulled in rainbow after rainbow, putting the rest of us to shame. I caught one good one, the rest were little and one I managed to foul hook. We didn’t keep any of the rainbows.
Mom and Drew went farther up the river while Baba and Papa fished near the same fast moving water as Brooke just a little farther upstream and closer to the bank. I fished for a bit then as I was heading towards shore I managed to step in a patch of softer mud and one of my waders got a bit of water in it. It was cold but the day was warm enough that it didn’t do much more than embarrass me.
Towards the end of the day one of our guides, Curtis, took Brooke and I up stream in one of the boats. The river is shallow and instead of props the boats have jet motors, similar to how a jet ski works. It was a bit of a wild ride up the river. Curtis had to navigate carefully to make sure that the boat stayed in the deeper water. As we sped up stream we could see through the crystal clear water to the rock bottom. We could see the giant red outlines of king salmon as they swam upstream; I’m pretty sure we spotted a beaver too. Having to leave the water that day was a little bitter. It had been a perfect and beautiful day and none of us wanted it to end.
We get back on the road and once we get to the end nearest the lodge we get out of the vehicles and get back into the boats to cross the short way from the far shore to the lodge. Before we push off from the bank Baba decides that she wants to swim the 30 or so yards to the dock. It takes her a minute to convince the guides to let her do this. They finally let her and we were cracking up the whole time and yes it ended up on Facebook. Baba showered then it was time for dinner.
That night was a riot of fun and drinking and crazy stories. Somewhere in there Curtis says that he will take us fishing in the morning,even though it is his day off, if we want but we have to meet by 4:15 am because we needed time to fish and be back in time or breakfast by 9am. Brooke, Drew and I were up for it but I will tell you more about that early morning fishing next week.
“Sunset” at a quarter past 11 at night.
McGee Travel Tales 