Urban Outcast Music Discovery #14 - Real Peach by Henry Jamison in honor of the bucket loads of peaches from the garden this year (30 lbs and counting). I suspect the tree got nervous by my hunt for next year's camp firewood and went from 2-4 peaches per year to a massive haul that might have permanently bowed all of the branches to ground level.
The traditional Brewster sockeye camping trip was booked 6 months in advance but 2 months ago the sockeye decided that swimming the 520 miles to reach my little red boat wasn't worth the effort this year. With the sockeye fishery closed, plan B was to switch to the big leagues and try for spring run kings. Started things off in the boat of Mr Jones who has shown great patience with my game of 1,000 questions for three years now. Also sharing the boat were the long suffering Professor Gardener and his fiancee (Dr Smalls). Facing a severe bankruptcy in my guiding points balance, I am relying on professionals to produce the fishes these days...
It was stupid early and dark as we got into trolling position right in front of Chelan Falls. Without barbed hooks we lost the first couple but the Professor got us on the board with a jack king while also demonstrating excellent fishing posture:
With no further love as the sun reached the water, we moved upstream to the Wells Dam where Dr Smalls put on a magnificent drama. It was an epic battle and I can still hear the exhaustion and desperation in the plea to just sit on the rod.
The traditional Brewster sockeye camping trip was booked 6 months in advance but 2 months ago the sockeye decided that swimming the 520 miles to reach my little red boat wasn't worth the effort this year. With the sockeye fishery closed, plan B was to switch to the big leagues and try for spring run kings. Started things off in the boat of Mr Jones who has shown great patience with my game of 1,000 questions for three years now. Also sharing the boat were the long suffering Professor Gardener and his fiancee (Dr Smalls). Facing a severe bankruptcy in my guiding points balance, I am relying on professionals to produce the fishes these days...
We vetoed the sacrilege and heartlessly stood back with cameras to see if the monster might pull her overboard. No such luck and the fish was finally reeled into the net. Critically, it was missing the proper fin and we were able to keep a very impressive hatchery king.
After that the Professor landed a smaller native king and we got some sockeye but they all had to go back. It was a slowish day for a guided trip but Dr Small's enthusiasm and spunk against 20+ pounds of muscle made it all worthwhile.
Back up at o-dark-thirty the following morning I tried to put my training to the test with the wife in the support kayak. The wind had other plans. But first it slow played to get its victims out into the deep water. As soon as the gear was deployed the wind picked up and started pushing the river back uphill... The standing waves started cresting the bows of our boats and after the first turn I looked around and realized the wife (correctly) chose safety over pride and was almost to shore. Visions of glory raining down from the real boats as a king dragged me around and around kept me on the water for a couple hours but between the weeds and wind/currents playing tricks its not clear if I was every really fishing.
At the campground there was tasty salmon and the wiff of danger as the rangers were making the rounds to let us know that a forest fire had started up a nearby valley and might come back to rechar the poor Alta Lake trees. No smores fires allowed and the fishing on the lake also wasn't very kind to me this year.
The bonus for this trip was the drive home. My not very closeted pyro side meant we had to check out the aforementioned fire and then we continued on to Washington Pass and into the North Cascades proper. Guess I have kept my head in the sand, I had no idea how awesome this stretch of road would be. Going to let the sights have the final word and I'll be back next week with the update from Baker Lake.