Red & Silver

Monday morning, weather's nice, time to go fishing.

Left the house at 0730 and stopped for coffee at Cooks Station. I know you guys are going to think I'm a glutton for punishment, but I have high hopes for Red Lake and Brook trout. I managed to get past the Carson Pass blast area with only a 15 minute wait. Got to Red Lake at about 0845. My plan was to see if I could rustle up a Brookie or two on Kastmasters and if I could, the switch to my fly rod.

All I managed to rustle up were those little Cutts that are around 6". Three to be exact. As has been my experience with Red Lake, if silver doesn't work, try gold. Well I tried all the colors in my tackle box and both colors of Panther Martins to no avail. I just can't get a Brookie to show it's face up there.

So I headed back down the hill. This time the hold at the blast area was 25 minutes. Made me wonder, since I was the first car in line, why the flag guy kept looking at his watch. I think he was timing the wait.

Next option was Caples. As I passed the lake, it had whitecaps on it, so I opted for Silver if it wasn't too windy. As it turns out, it was calm and glassy. I went out to the rock I normally fish from and set out two rods with PB. As I was sitting there, I noticed several pretty good sized trout cruising by about 5 feet off shore. They seemed to be surface feeding, so I took my Okuma with 2# and tied a #18 gold treble hook on the end (no sinker). I put a small dab of PB (I'm still using rainbow) on the hook and waited for one to swim by.

The first one came by and I dropped the PB three feet in front of it's nose. It made all kinds of dashes at it, but wouldn't take it. Same thing with the second one.

OK, time for plan B. I walked back to the truck and swapped my Okuma for my fly rod with floating line. My first shot was with a size 16 stimulator. It just swam by and didn't show any interest. Second try was with a Thinmint. Nada. Guy across the way made some mention about grasshoppers. Ok, Dave's Hopper. Nope. Last on the list (and I was getting tired of standing in one spot looking for fish) was a Black Gnat (Sorry Bill, didn't have yours with me) and once again, nada.

Couldn't get any interest on flies (what they seemed to be feeding on was a small gnat of some type. You guys know I'm Entomology stupid), but I did get a bunch of casting practice. I have a marking on my fly line at 35 feet and I was consistantly casting past that. You know, that old
10 & 2 thing, with one back swing and then lay it on the water.

I did manage one 10 incher on PB and gave it to a couple fishing next to me. They didn't speak English too well (Russian, I think), and I had some trouble explaining that one fish wasn't worth taking home. But I finally made myself clear and they added that one to the 4 on their stringer. Today was a day for slinging flies and practicing casting.

Wasn't a particularly productive day, but I did manage some sun (we always need a little more Vitamin D) and added a little color to my truck driver tan. Don't want to be running around with out a shirt when your a geezer. Scares away the other fishermen and the fish.

Onward to the next adventure. Till then.

Mark