by whorde, November 13, 2014

Our weekend started Saturday - you can read posts from Lakes Julia and Smelling. So on Sunday, beat up and tired already from the day before and minus the force of nature to help carry things, Mr. B and I set forth on our most ridiculous adventure yet. If by some miracle you didn’t find us completely insane already, this should fix that. The force of nature, by wisdom or luck, chose to not accompany us this time.

Sunday was a day of polar opposites. It was a day of great tragedy and great triumph.

Mr. B has a favorite lake with rainbows and brook trout in it, which is about a 3ish mile hike without terribly much elevation gain. This is my first secret lake post. If you want to know where this actually is, you can ask Mr. B I suppose, good luck with that, or really, go fishing with one or the other of us a few times and get to know us. Then, if you aren’t a baby who can’t handle rain and suffering, we’ll take you places! If you think you know what this lake is, please respect our choice to not name it.

Even after a brutal, wet, cold, dirty crawl through a ridiculous jungle briar patch yesterday, today we had scheduled to PULL my 5 man raft, 2 batteries, electric motor – the whole nine yards, on a 3+ mile hike to fish for brook trout. That’s right. My raft … I don’t know how much it weighs, but it is substantially heavier than a 45 pound plate in the gym. So Mr. B had that in a roller luggage, along with all his gear. I had the batteries (let’s say 25ish pounds each), the motor, the oars, and all my stuff, in a backpack and on a collapsible hand truck. I’m estimating we had 70 pounds each to pull, give or take, plus our backpacks.

So this road we pulled the gear on is not super hilly. But it’s a crushed rock road. Rocks up to 10 inches or so, buried in sand/dirt, so it is pretty chunky and uneven in a lot of places. Mr. B’s roller luggage was dragging over some of the rocks instead of rolling, which was fine until the skid plate broke off. My hand truck rolled easier with bigger tires, but was tippy on the uneven rocks. Did I mention it’s raining?

So we make decent progress, get a third or maybe half way there, and suddenly see …. 3 of the 4 clamps have rattled loose from my motor mount and are gone. Not good! We look a bit, but they’re small grey plastic pieces somewhere in at least a 1 mile brown and grey crushed rock road. Resolving to hold the motor mount to the raft with fishing line, we soldier on, paying more attention to the gear. Oh yeah, and it’s raining. Then we get to the main hill climb, where of course the rocks are bigger and the smooth spots are fewer, finally get over that, and come to some flooded areas of road which can’t be tiptoed around. I put on my waders. Mr. B plows through in shoes. It stops raining. We hike the final stretch and arrive at the lake. We’ve made it!

I’ve kept my pants hiked up, so my chafing from yesterday is pretty calm.

IT STARTS RAINING AGAIN THANKS MA NATURE.

So we decide to rest a bit, maybe it will stop raining so we can launch raft in peace. I grab my rods and head to the primitive dock. I’m excited. I’ve never caught a brook trout before. Mr. B tags along. I utter prophetic words, “Today is a great day for beginner’s luck”, start throwing a castmaster. He doesn’t expect we’ll get anything as it’s more shallow here, and last time he caught fish on the far side of the lake in deeper water. Third cast BAM strong hit. He grabs the other pole with the roostertail and starts casting. Two cast later, fish on the castmaster! I land my first brook trout ever! Really nice 11 inches give or take. It is just as magical as the pictures I’ve seen. How a fish can look like it comes from a special effects studio, but actually be real, blows my mind. Mr. B let’s me know that brook trout are mostly, duh, in brooks, so a lot of people would consider a brook trout pushing 11+ inches to be a trophy. But he makes sure to point out that he’s caught them in this very lake up to 14+ inches give or take. In any case, a few more casts, no more bites, the rain lets up a bit so we go to launch the raft.

Oddly, the floor wont hold air. I know it had a pinhole leak a week ago. I look where the spot should be, but wow, it’s much bigger than last week. Maybe half the size of a dime. So I bust out the patch kit, we go cast some more on the dock, come back, start to inflate it, and hmmm …. Bubbles from underwater? So we turn the raft over, and WHAT IS THIS??? There’s a hole in the bottom of the raft the size of a quarter!!? This makes no sense. I had the raft out a week ago, it had a pinhole leak, now it has TWO craters in it, as if I had dropped it on something sharp! Well, thankfully I have half the patch kit left, so we patch the bottom and wait. An air test shows both are holding, at least for now, so we load minimum gear and hit the water. It’s pushing noon. We met at the park and ride at ten minutes before 7am … 5 hours to get in the water haha. Sigh.

By the way, it’s raining again.

So we troll … I go with a different spoon that Mr. B has recommended, and a wedding ring with a few split shot. Mr. B goes with a diving lure and a wet fly. The wind is swirly, it’s raining, we troll to far end of lake, zero bites. Mr. B has almost been defeated by the weather and asks for my umbrella. We troll a bit more, still no bites. The wind finally stabilizes direction, we go back to far end of the lake and start floating back toward the launch. At this point, we’re drifting 2 worms, I’m throwing the spoon, Mr. B is huddling under the umbrella. He doesn’t have his rain slicker, I do, so I’m cold but he’s borderline hypothermia. The umbrella is keeping him in the raft. Finally the rain kinda lets up and I deploy the depth finder. Lake is 20 feet on far end, slowly down to about 30-35 feet, and then slopes up to about 10-15 feet deep by the time we get to casting range from the primitive dock we started at. Lots of returns at top and bottom five feet of water. TONS of returns. Still no bites. We are baffled. The lake is swarming with fish, yet with multiple methods tried, we haven’t even gotten so much as a nibble. Too cold? Too stormy? We saw risers as we launched, right before the downpours started. I switch the spoon to weight and worm to drag the bottom. STILL no bites.

We finally drift almost all the way back down to the primitive dock, it’s maybe 100 feet away. What the heck says I, so I switch the bottom dragger back to the original castmaster I had caught the fish on. Few casts, and BAM FISH ON. Another really nice brook trout 11-12 inch range. I put it on the stringer. After two+ hours without even a bite and pounding rain, then the rain finally lessens up a bit and I got a second brook, this re-energizes Mr. B. We both have no shame, so he does exactly what I would have done and switches to the closest castmaster he has to what I am using. We keep drifting, I get a 3rd, a little one maybe 8 inches, throw it back. My day is already made. Never caught a brook trout before, now I’ve got one to eat, 2 more released, AND Mr. B is down 3-0 and trust me, I make sure to point that out haha. Just as I’m doing this, BAM fish on for him and it’s a monster! Pushing 14 inches! So much for my trash talk.

Well, time passes, I catch another couple small ones, Mr. B catches another 13-14 inch, he’s definitely winning on biggest fish but for the first time ever I’m not just way ahead on total but actually holding that lead, especially when I hook up another in the 11-12 range, which puts me at 3 keepers (although first from dock released) and another 4 or so released due to being small. At this point there really isn’t any reason to have the depth finder transponder in the water, as all we’re doing is casting toward the lily pads so depth doesn’t matter. But it’s in the water. As I’m putting the second fish on the stringer, the stringer is looped around the transponder, so I’m fiddling with it and some how the stringer line slips out of my hand, and is gone.

I think my heart stopped. I know I couldn’t breath. Two gorgeous fish, not only lost, that I really don’t care about as I can always catch more fish, but wasted. That is what was so agonizing. If I take them and eat them, that’s fine, but just wasted? And nothing I could do. There’s no way they’ll live on a stringer. It takes me 10 minutes to recover. Mr. B points out that the one I just put on the stringer will eventually work itself free by pulling against the other, which makes sense, and that makes me feel slightly better as now only one will die. And who knows, maybe it wont. After all, in Bosworth I caught a fish that was gut hooked, some idiot cut the line above the snap swivel, then the fish swallowed the snap swivel creating a loop, pooped out the snap swivel, and was slowly cutting itself in half with the loop of line. And then bit my worm! So maybe a stringer through the gill plate wont kill the fish. Or maybe it will at least spawn first. Anyway, I’m beyond upset. I eventually pull myself together. We keep casting.

Time is running short. Mr. B catches another a little smaller, maybe 12. Yeah, his “smaller” brook is “only 12”. I catch another similar. We talk about the time, it’s 3:15, we need to wrap this up. He has 3 on board, I have 1, I’ve released a ton, ok ok a couple more casts, and BAM my rod is buried. Mr. B sees a flash and just about jumps out of the raft. I’m focused on reeling, but I can tell by his excitement level that this is no normal fish. I finally get a good look and I’m thinking what the heck is this, a spawning sockeye or something? We land it, and it’s a wide, thick, fifteen and a half inch brook in full spawning glory. We look at each other, declare victory, and head for the launch.

You might think I would end this story here, with a pic of our combined keep of 5 brook trout (of 13 caught) from 11+ to 15.5 inches, which from what Mr. B tells me is so absurd as to defy most people’s belief, with me catching not just my first brook trout ever but bringing a limit’s worth of keepers to the boat and a second limit’s worth of small ones, with a lifetime trophy brook trout, with winning first, biggest, and most against Mr. B, certainly a first with that! ….. but no. Our day was far from over, so this story must continue.

It starts to rain hard again as we pack up.

Then we notice … one of the wheels on Mr. B’s roller luggage is about to fall off. We’re 3+ miles from the car, on a crushed rock road, with 70 pounds of junk to haul in this luggage, and …. it’s broken. It can’t be fixed. We have no options. I’ve got the batteries, motor mount, motor, oars on my hand truck. So my raft, in his broken roller luggage, have to be abandoned. We leave them behind a tree until we can go out again and figure out what to do about it.
By now it’s perhaps ten after four, it’s heading toward dark, and we have to pound out 3 miles of treacherous terrain, pulling a handtruck with 70 pounds, as fast as we can. Because last night Mr. B got chewed out by Mrs. B for being home after dark! Can we make it in 45 minutes!?

Hahahahaha. Not a chance.

The way out to the lake was slow, but I could maneuver around the rocks with plenty of light. The way back it was dark. I’m just pounding the handtruck. We’re making good time though, probably almost half way, but the ropes holding everything together are unraveling. We retie. At one point the motor is touching both terminals of a battery and starts sparking! We retie and fix the problem. I’m finally just beaten to a pulp, so Mr. B starts pulling. The hand truck keeps tipping on uneven rocks, the batteries slide off to the side (roped on so can’t fall out) and every time they do that, we have to stop to reset them or it makes the tipping 10x worse. Finally the oars go in my backpack, I’m carrying the mount and motor in one hand, we’re CARRYING the handtruck with both batteries between us. My shoulders are on fire. Mr. B is built heavier than I am, so he’s not suffering as much. We’re stumbling over rocks in the dark, it’s raining, I’m exhausted and cold and soaked despite my slicker, finally we pound to the end of the trail, drop the gear, walk to the car, drive it back, load it up, and we’re off.

I don’t know if Mr. B got chewed out by Mrs. B for getting home after dark or not. But I am quite pleased with myself that I went fishing with a much more experienced fisherman, and out of all the stuff we both tried, it was me that found what worked. That means to me that I’m not a trout idiot any more – all of Mr. B’s lessons, what to use, how to use it, when to change, observing conditions … all lessons have been successful. And also, I caught perhaps a lifetime best brook trout, which was certainly the most gorgeous fish I’ve ever caught regardless of size. And certainly will be delicious also, if the smaller one I had for dinner that night is any indication. That brook trout tasted amazing even on the same plate as cutthroat from Lake Smelling, which was awesome in its own right. So I’m going to focus on the positive, rather than the horrible nightmare of the lost stringer. Accidents happen, so I can’t dwell on the loss. My only other regret is that I don’t have a posed pic with the monster brook, just pics of the fish on the ground.

Long story short – never, never, NEVER try to haul a 5 man raft and gear over 3 miles of rough terrain. Ever. Take it from me. Mr. B and I are maniacs. We do what others can’t and/or wont do, and we do that for sport. That’s what we seek out. And between the ridiculous crawl to Lake Julia Saturday, and this absurd idea to haul a 5 man raft 3 miles each way Sunday, we swore to never do either again. We will be back to this lake, as we need to get that damaged 5 man raft out of there even if we have to chop it into pieces. But next time we’re taking 1 man rafts in our backpacks. Even we can learn our lesson.