Since we both had the holiday off, old guy joke,
@Buzzy and I decided to go find some open water.
The fishing was less than stellar but heck it's mid January and was 22 degrees when I left Spokane.
We both had a number of decent fish to the net along with a half dozen or so "oh shits".
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@Old406Kid and I had been going back and forth about cutting work, which day was best for driving conditions and did we want to sit in our boats in the rain or not? Well, who cares about cutting work when you're retired? And concern about weather in January? Maybe not if you're in the South Pacific.
It was a balmy 37°F when I left Ephrata at 6:45 in the morning. By the time I got to Coulee City, things had changed. There was an ice hut set up on the ice at the south end of the lake even though most of the lake isn't frozen. 25°F at Million Dollar Mile.
I had hoped to see how the Ahrex NS172 stuck trout, unfortunately, the catching was really slow and nothing touched this fly, next time.
My pram is built from three sheets of 1/4 inch marine mahogany, sliding it over rocks used to make me cringe. Now I realize that's just a part of fishing and wood boat maintenance (I really do try to minimize "dragging" over rocks). Dean's boat and rocks? It has quite a rocker! And yes, not only does he have oars, but he also uses an electric to move the boat from time to time. The extra two feet in length in his boat could be useful but I'd probably just have more "stuff" stuffed into my boat.
I fished for just over six hours with not a lot of catching. A brief "bite" about 11:30 when
@triploidjunkie said was a good time to start and then it was back to lots of casting and stripping or watching my indicator swing in the big eddy.
Later in the day, way past 11:30, TR shows up and hikes out along the jetty. Within a minute or two: fish on! I think this guy knows his home water and what he's doing!
Driving home along Banks Lake, the fog lifted a couple miles north of Coulee City. Past this field, there's a small bay formed by the shoreline and part of the old highway. I remember boating into it one year, dropping the anchor outside of the bay and quietly wading to the old road. There must have been 50 carp feeding in the muddy bottom. My buddy made a cast to one tailing fish who ate his presentation (first cast fish!). When DK set the hook, the fish jumped and must have screamed because every fish in the little bay immediately panicked and took off down the confines of the bay creating a bulging wave. It was really cool.
It was still freezing when I left the river but it had warmed up four or five degrees. We didn't get snowed on or rained on, the "W" was really light all day so fishing conditions were superb for this time of year. It was great to get out and fun to see Dean and TR! Looking forward to more trips out.
