The Art Of Relaxation Goes South

In the beginning (no Bible stuff I promise) In the beginning there was sunshine and blue skies.

I headed out of the house around 0740 and after coffee at Cooks Station, headed to the target lake, Caples. My original plan was to go across the spillway and set up on the sandy side. As you can see in the picture below, it was still a little white on that side. To negotiate that side when it's like this is to slog through, not only the snow, but the muddy runoff from the snow above. It's not a pretty sight so I'll just wait until the snow melts.

The sandy side of the spillway

I got there at 0830 and decided to set up by the dead tree instead. I don't think I've ever taken a picture of the dead tree, but I know I've talked about it quite often.  

The dead tree (the far one)

Down the lake, what a couple hundred feet, I found (well, not found exactly since I've fished this area a bunch of times) a spot where I could set up my red Coleman  camping chair. I put out two rods with Power Bait (one with Anise and the other with garlic) and proceeded to get comfortable.

Across the lake

Just so you can enjoy the beauty of the hill across from where I was sitting and understand how this can be so relaxing.The shot below is to show how clear the water is.

Right below my feet

Comfortable, warm with a slight breeze, I settled in for the wait. The wait for the fish to bite, of course. In the past I've showed you pictures of this snow shelf. It returns every year just like that and keeping in mind that some day it will let loose, that is another reason not to fish that side quite yet.

Yearly snow shelf

Now I want to whine a little. Why is it that when I'm at Red Lake the wind blows across the mountain below and into my face and when I at Caples it blows across that same mountain top and into my face? What am I, a wind magnet?

Never mind, back to warm and fuzzy. Sitting in my camping chair, head back using my sweatshirt hood as a pillow, it wasn't hard to drop off to sleep. Every once in a while I'd open one eye to see if one of the rods was bouncing with a bite.

Then one time I opened my eyes, I noticed the clouds creeping over the hill across the lake.

Clouds on the creep

Then I noticed that further to the right the hill over there had creeping clouds too.

More creeping clouds

No matter, back to snoozing and occasionally taking a peek for a bouncing rod tip.

Then when I opened one eye I noticed that the creeping clouds were getting a touch darker and a might bigger.

Darker creepers

Then they started to get a LOT darker and a lot creepier.

More and darker

If you've ever experienced afternoon thunder storms in the mountains (and I know a lot of you have) then you know that when the wind stops, and it did. Then the wind starts to pick up again, but this time it's a cooler wind, and it did. Then the clouds get a lot darker you're in for one of those Spring thunder and lightning events.

So here you are sitting on the side of the lake (water is a good conductor of electricity by the way) with two six foot lightning rods right next to you and the sky starts making a bunch of noise, what do you do?

You pack up and get the hell out of Dodge, that's what you do. Which is exactly what I did.  

Oh, I forgot to mention that the weather guessers said on the news this morning that this was going to happen . Must have been a senior moment.

Did I catch anything? Not even a nibble.......

Mark