A FORGOTTEN TRADITION IS REVIVED, or
How In The World Can Summer Slip By Without Fishing?

It has been awhile since I have gone fishing, so use any of the standard excuses to explain my absence. The Same To You.

My neighbor, his wife, and I started an early expedition to fish Fishtrap Lake on Thursday, arriving at the lake 5:15 AM. It was too early for even the mocha-makers, so we indulged our coffee before we left home. The drive was uneventful; the sky was clear and the wind was out-of-breath; no breeze at all. The sun was beginning to make the horizon glow as we dipped the Doghouse into the drink at the boat launch. The lake level looked like it had dropped several inches since the last time we were here in June. The surface was ironing board smooth, with the evidence of algaefication (another Don King word, thanks to him!) all over the place. Wedding rings were used, and soon I switched to one of those Uncle Wes’ lures with a humongous flasher that makes the pattern more visible in murky water. Of course my neighbor’s wife caught the first fish--- a good-sized rainbow. Then, we caught a CATFISH. And another. Then another!! We must’ve hit an area of the lake where the cats were king... Hmmm. Catching catfish while trolling. Well, you learn something every day.

We trolled the entire length of the lake, finding quiet both in the air and our fishing poles. The 70-degree surface water kept the fish from being too excited about our presentations. At the southern end of the lake we did catch the majority of our trout, which was unusual for us: we usually caught our limits in the northern half of the lake. For the record I DID catch a rainbow on the south part.

The quiet of the electric trolling motor allowed us to enjoy the stillness of the morning--- interrupted only by the derisive hooting of distant coyotes and the scoldings of the resident ospreys that we were making sounds in THEIR lake. They should be so arrogant--- when ospreys fish, they dive into the water and they make a sound like hitting the water with a flat broom---SUP-PLASH! That ain't exactly SUBTLE... However, they DO look majestic soaring above the lake, looking as if they had not a care in the world...

That persistent girl in our boat outdid us (formerly) grizzled veterans of the fishing wars...AGAIN. She even caught a BLUEGILL near the resort on the northern end. It was pretty, as in pretty SMALL. A couple of seasons ago Bluegills were as numerous as liver pills throughout the lake. Does catching this critter now mean an oh-oh is in store for the lake?

We DID catch 6 trout between all of us, and almost caught a whopper catfish (that’s my story, and I am sticking to it). We did have an enjoyable morning fishing Fishtrap Lake (Hey, if we limited-out every time, we would have to call it ‘catching’, wouldn’t we?)

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