A FISH LAKE TALE
I am primarily a stillwater nymph fisherman. Back in the eighties, my wife and I had a tent trailer with a rack for a small aluminum punt on top. We would travel in Alberta to various lakes.
My wife, Connie, is a lovely lady but she is fair weather fisherperson and also she would have to be an octopus to handle everything she likes to take with her out in the boat. Two hands are not enough for a mug of coffee, a thermos, a book, three quilting magazines, a nervous kitten needing non-stop petting and a pair of binoculars. Now adding a fly rod that “has to be constantly held securely” was just about too much.
Anyway, here we are pulling into the campground at Fish Lake in west central Alberta. Fish Lake is stocked with Rainbows and in the past has always produced nice fish. It’s Friday night and we still have two hours of light so I am anxious to get out on the water. Connie however has noticed some bolete mushrooms as we drove in to the campground. So we go hunting the bolete. As we walk around the lake we meet a number of other campers. To our “How’s fishin’?” we get various answers all using the word “lousy” as in “Plain lousy!” and “Lousy suckers!” Ah well, the bolete harvest was good. We did, however, meet up with a warden who told us that test nets had shown quite a few large trout. It was with his encouraging words and a belly full of bolete-fried-in-olive oil, that I take myself to bed.
I have always been an early riser and in the morning I go for walk to give Connie time to wake up. I pick some more mushrooms and return to set up two rods with sinking lines. I quietly cook bacon, eggs and mushroom for breakfast. I’m impatient to get out on the lake but I’ve learned that it’s best to go with the flow and let everything proceed in an orderly fashion. It’s 9 am when we do get out and I head for the west side where the water is thirty feet deep and the bottom is sand, free of all snags. I cast out the two lines and begin a slow troll about thirty paces from shore.
The reel on Connie’s rod screams, Connie grabs the rod, my feet and the kitten get wet from spilled coffee and the fight is on. The fish digs down deep. Soon I am convinced that Connie had hooked into one of those “lousy suckers”.
“You’ve got a sucker, winch it in”
Connie’s version now reads “Yes, Lord and Master”
Connie fights to gain line on the fish and after a while I see the flash of silver and we both realize that this is a Rainbow and a good one at that.
The fish breaks the surface close to the boat and I look around for the net. Where is that net? Oops, oh shoot, we don’t have a net.
“I forgot the net; let me think for a minute, keep the line tight”!
“What are we going to do? Why did you forget the net”?
“I’ve got an idea. I can use the gunnysack. I’ll put my hand in it and if you bring the fish right up to the boat I can gill the fish or catch it by the tail. We’ll get it, don’t worry”
At this point, I regretted putting that twelve-foot leader on Connie’s rod. Connie brought the fish close to the boat and I leaned precariously out over the water. We are to repeat this scenario several times.
“Oh shoot, there goes an oar. We’re drifting into the shallows. Forget the oar. Try again, bring it to the boat.”
The head of the fish is closest to me so I try to gill it but the gunnysack gets tangled in the leader and the fly hooks on to the gunnysack. The fish does a back flip, the leader snaps and the exhausted fish sashays very slowly down into the deep. It truly was the largest fish that Connie has ever hooked.