Carol Northcut | Saturday, 4 November 2023
An artic blast came through bringing a sudden change to winter. Thursday and Friday it snowed. Saturday we awoke to a temp of 3⁰ F with cloudy skies. The heated gloves, fleece-lined tights, ski pants, warm hat, buff, and poofy jacket came out. Applying significant mental force, I pushed myself to overcome inertia and went outside to practice in 25⁰ for 25 minutes. Sunday started off two degrees warmer, but with sunshine. By afternoon, practice was much more tolerable. (Mika is probably thinking, “What a wimp!” LOL.)
Two weeks ago I went fishing with the “casting director” of our FFI chapter, who I’ll call “Drew.” The weather was perfect for fishing a small lake for grayling in Drew’s Hyde drift boat. The lake itself isn’t very deep, maybe 23 feet in the deepest spots, but it doesn’t winter kill and is very productive. Watching a small patch of shallow water during launch, I saw several scuds and a crawdad swimming around. No wonder the fish get big there. It was good to be with a more experienced angler who knows a lot more about grayling than I, especially in that lake. We finally found the pod of grayling and Drew caught several fat 16-18” fish, releasing them all quickly. I was casting from the other side of the boat, facing away from the pod, until Drewhad his fill. Then he offered me the opportunity to cast to the pod, at which time I caught a couple. If it were Steve and I fishing, he would not have gotten away with hogging the casting zone, but it wasn’t Steve, my boat, nor my knowledge upon which I was relying, so I didn’t complain and was just grateful to be out there.
Drew gave me my first lesson in rowing. The wooden oars were heavier than expected, but all the hours I’ve put in on the rowing machine at home afforded me ample strength to handle it, and I rowed about a 1/3 to 1/2 mile back to the launch with ease.While Drew was a good rowing and fishing instructor with some very clever tips, his casting was unusual: very fast wide pickups, followed by nearly slapping the line down with a non-loop, and then repeating this a few times, each time extending a bit of line. I’ve seen a guide in Colorado do the same thing. Where do they learn this? I know he doesn’t practice like this. It was interesting.
Other than going out with my brother-in-law on Lake Powell in a bass boat 12 years ago, it’s the first time I’d lake-fished from a boat since we sold the heavy, nearly-flat-bottom Coleman canoe we bought at a garage sale for $75. That canoe was so difficult to control, we only used it four or five times and sold it for $50at a garage sale a year later. At least we didn’t lose much money.