Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Indian Summer at fly-fish-bc.

Sept.30 - the last day of summer.

It's been a pretty incredible September, beautiful weather, great fishing, a trip to San Diego with friends, and a recent hike into a pretty mountain lake which was invigorating - unfortunately the trip down was not so successful.

The fishing on local rivers was incredible at the beginning of the month. My christmas tree leech pattern worked its magic and I landed a number of rainbows and cuttbows on the PdO and Salmo.

The Columbia too was hot. One evening I hooked a half dozen fish on a klinkhamer caddis and tom thumb, was broken off twice, quick released two, and landed two.

My trip to San Diego forced me to lay down the fly rod for a week and brush up on my golf. Such are my personal woes. I met my good friends from Whitehorse, Randy, Andrew and Dan, for a week of golf, a few beers and a Chargers football game -pretty much in that order. Had a great time and will definately return. The photo to the right shows Andrew in a little trouble at Torrey Pines.

I returned refreshed and looking to get in a little fishing before the weather turns. This past weekend I decided to hike up to Kokanee Lake in Kokanee Glacier Park. It was a beautiful sunny day with a stiff breeze to cool you off from the hike. I packed my 4-wt and had fun catching small cutthroat on almost every cast. I hiked down from the lake with a smile on my face, looking forward to Monday night football and a cold beer. As I rumbled down the poor excuse for a logging road, I heard a 'thunk', my left wheel wavered, as I slammed on the brakes... Almost five years ago, to the day, the same thing happened while I was way up in Boundary Lake country. I hiked 24-km out that day, then sat on the side of the highway with my thumb out for 4 hours before someone picked me up.
It was the same unmistakeable sound of my tie rod exploding. This time I was in no mood for more hiking. I took a length of rope and bound the two ends of the tie-rod together and limped the last 10-km down to the highway. It wasn't pretty as I had to stop and physically straighten the wheel every kilometer or so. Neither was my wife too happy when I called her and explained my situation and the fact that she had to drive an hour to come fetch me. She also reminded me ever so shrilly that I had not left a note as to where I was going, and what happened if something serious happened and she had no idea where I was, and because I'm too stubborn to get a cell phone, what would I do then.... you get the idea.

Anyway I love her dearly and thanked her again for driving back to the truck the next day to drop the car keys off so it could be towed. I suppose something bad was bound to happen after such a great month. Here's hoping for better in October.

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