LUCKY THIRTEEN
The date was November 1st, 1974 and this year, the lakes in this part of Alberta were still ice-free. I had completed a long, tough week and since I’ve always found that going fishing was therapeutic, I’m heading towards Carson Lake.
Carson Lake must be the luckiest accident in the history of stocked lakes. There is a water plant on the lake that pumps water to a number of natural gas extraction units in the area. In the fall of 1966, this plant pumped the lake too low and consequently, that winter the lake froze to the bottom. This killed all the pike, tullibee, suckers, lingcod and perch that were native to the lake. There was a large snow pack and when it melted in the spring of 1967, the lake filled to the brim.
The biologists saw the opportunity to stock trout and they released 300,000+ rainbow fry. They couldn’t believe their eyes when these fish were up to ¾ lb. by fall. This fantastic growth rate continued for subsequent years. The fresh water shrimp population was truly immense and the trout were simply swimming along with their mouths open sieving shrimp into their bellies. But - there is an outfall creek that runs to the Athabasca River and no one had thought to block the pike from reentering the lake. The yearly stockings were simply feeding the pike, thank you very much.
Fortunately the larger trout were agile enough to avoid being eaten. It was to this situation that Zoe Girl, my Springer Spaniel and I are heading. We arrive at the lake and the campground is empty. We bed down and are snug in my truck camper.
It’s 7 am the following morning when we hear a lot of noise outside. We look out and see two men running down the ramp with a boat. At breakneck speed they load an outboard motor and two rifles. I scan the far shore with binoculars and I see the two cow moose that have aroused their attention. The moose take off, the boat makes a U-turn and our two “hunters” return. I invite them in for coffee and they did state that they knew that cows were not in season and that it was illegal to hunt from a boat. It turned out they were spinning rod fishermen and were going after the pike.
After breakfast we head out through a thin film of ice, Zoe girl and I to a creek mouth and the hunters to an area with weed beds on both sides of a channel. I cast and cast all around for 30 – 40 minutes, changing flies every ten casts or so. I finally settle on a #10 halfback and I hook a large fish. I had three hundred yards of backing on my reel with a small piece of strike indicator wool every hundred yards. Two of these markers went through the eyes like smoke. I now had a massive fish rolling on the surface, two hundred plus yards away from the boat. Zoe Girl had picked up on my excitement and was doing laps around my small aluminum punt. In those days I was a smoker and the end result, of trying to light a cigarette with a bent over paper match, was sulphur burns on my middle finger. Two smoke-less, tension-filled hours later I did net the exhausted fish 12```` `. Since it had started to snow, I headed for the camper, relieved that I had landed my trophy. The “hunters” arrived at the ramp at the same time. I couldn’t wait to show them my fish. Ouch!! They had a trout that was clearly bigger than mine and they had caught it on a 4" “Five-of-Diamonds”. There I was - a #10 shrimp on six-pound leader. So much for delicacy.
Taxidermy - $189 74 dollars. Connie is petrified that there’s a bigger one out there somewhere.
