I'm sorry it took me a while to post this up, it's been a busy week. I 've been starting to feel fat and lazy sitting around staring at PHP and CSS and databses I could feel my muscles getting soft and my brain turning to mush. So I took the day off, slept in, and went fishing at this lake.

It's an easy walk now that I know where to go, over about 3 miles of dirt road. If you miss the turn you end up going through the creepy catholic church camp, mainly creepy because it says "property of the Arch Diosese of Seattle" or something like that. But I talked to the maitenence guy last time I got lost and he was pretty cool.

I took the scenic route to get there, ended up following the ridge instead of going below it, but I wanted the excersize and was going to set up to take a picture from the summit-ish area of Lobotomy Hill. Around the top I saw several bits of cougar scat, sitting in the open, not very old at all, and when I was resting with a Dr. Pepper, I heard a crashing through the thicket behind me. I didn't see what it was, but it was too big to be a raccoon, probably a deer, or a bear, cougars aren't loud, but I wasn't going to take my chances. So I decided to go fishing and pout my gear back together.

I took my pack raft this time, which is really the only way to fish this lake. There are twenty yards of fallen logs, sticks and shallow grassy weedy water at most of the edge of this lake. I reckon if you had waders you'd just end up sinking in the muck. So I paddled out past the muck and saw a fish swirl, which was a good sign.

I got a good 15 minutes of peacful casting when the wind started gusting. It was pretty ridiculous, if I wasn't so scared of getting blown into one of the protruding beaver sticks I would have been having fun. But the gusts didn't last long, and there were breaks in them. So I pretty much let the wind blow me around with a Kastmaster trolling behind me.

My feet started to get real cold, I don't like to wear shoes in my raft on account of I don't want to get a hole in it. I trolled the whole length of the south east part at the base of the hill, and when I was turning around I got a big vibrate-y hit, a feisty 8 inch or so little brook trout. No pictures because I don't take my big fancy camera out on the raft if it were to get wet I'd be out a lotta money. And he went back.

The wind started to pick up real bad, and as I was rowing against it it made for really hard fishing. My feet were cold and it started to rain, so I headed back as fast as I could against the wind at a snails pace. At that point I was holding my rod in my feet, you'd be surprised how good you can get at setting the hook with your toes.

The next strike ripped the rod outta my toes, and dang near off the boat but I caught the pole with one hand and the other was holding the tow line keeping my balance. I played the fish with my knees half the time digging the oars as deep as I could to prevent a catastrophic collision with those dang beaver sticks. Luckily the fish started towing the boat against the wind, digging itself towards the murky depths. It was hilarious fun and I almost forgot my feet were numb and frozen. He had my ultra light fenwick bending into the cork like a big king on a steelhead rod. It was ridiculous. The rod is rated to eight pound test, most of my ultra lights go to 6 but do better at four or two. The fight probably lasted a lot longer on account of fighting the wind and sticks, and by the time I turned him towards the surface he made his first jump about 10 minutes into this whole ridiculous scene and took my breath away.

Big and really beautiful. He tired out real fast after that and I got him alongside the boat and got to look at him for a bit. I didn't have a net, and I wasn't gonna lose my rod over board, and he was hooked right in the lip of the nose and long story short, inspite of all the care I took, as I attempted to loft him genttly but quickly over the side of the raft my barbles hook took advantage of a bit of slack, slipped out the fish and I juggle-flip flopped it through my hands a couple times before it went swimming off.

At this point I realized I'd let the air of one of the compartments in the floor in my boat in the scuffle. Not life threatening or anything, but with nothing to seperate my bare feet from the icy water my feet got real cold. I had my fun, I needed to restore the circulation in my feet I fought the wind back to my pack hidden in the bushes and ate my lunch and packed up for the walk back.

On the way out I ran into two VERY off road vehicles slowly making there way to the lake. they were some real neat looking trucks, reminds me of when I was a kid we'd off road a souped up fifty year old chevy love we bought off this guy for fifty bucks. I don't know if the had permission to be out there, they made it past two gates, and I sure hope they pick up their beer cans. This lake is real wild, lowland style with brush and briars and sticker bushes and lots of life in it. I think it's becoming one of my favorite destinations, in a real neat part of the county and relatively close to hom. I did take a neat pano of the lake for the site, I'll be back on a sunny day to hopefully get some better light.

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