Well my first trip in 2010 was supposed to be a great trip. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you intend though. The plans were simple take two of my friends out and fish the same river that I fished last Sunday ( http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?t=32999 ).
I was woken up not by my alarm but by a horrible cramp in my calf. You know the type where you go from a dead sleep to jumping out of bed. I guess that was the first sign of how the day was going to go. After I took care of the cramp I turned off my alarm as it was going to go off in 10 minutes and started to get ready.
When I was getting ready I heard the tell tale sound of a new text message from my cell phone. It was Jeremy saying that he couldn?t make it. This was because he forgot to pick up his 2010 license. This should have been clue 2 as how the day was going to turn out.
Since it had been snowing all day I decided to take my 4x4. I headed out to Chris’s house to pick him up. We loaded up the truck and headed out. The freeway was in pretty bad shape; normally I drive 80-85 going there. However with the conditions I was doing around 50 (the speed limit is 75).
We got to our exit and stopped for some breakfast; we ate quickly and headed out. I noticed that we burned through a lot more gas then we should have. I took a look and found out why, my wife left the vehicle in 4 wheel auto (there is no visual queue to let you know it is in this setting).
As we made our way up the road the conditions went downhill and I had to put the vehicle into 4 wheel high. You could not see the road at this point so navigation was done by using the snow markers on either side of the road.
We made it to the turnoff and headed down into the canyon. When I first pulled off the road I stopped and put the vehicle into 4 wheel low as the conditions warranted it. On our way down it was pretty hard to make out where the road was. I was starting to think we should just turn around when I saw a plow ahead. Sweet I thought to myself and I followed the plow down the hill.
The plow turned off on top of the dam and I went by. Driving over the dam and down the second road I saw another plow. Chris said that they had to keep the road open because it is the only way into Prairie. We kept driving towards our first fishing spot of the day.
We made it to the first run we wanted to fish. A feeling of relief came over me as we had made it. I did overshoot the run by a little bit so I decided to turn around. We were on our way back up to the run when it happened. I did not see a drift on the right side of the road. Yes I managed to get stuck.
It took us two and a half hours of digging, rocking, using the floor mats for extra traction to get out. I remember hitting the gas and feeling the tires grab and pull me back up onto the road (The truck had slid a bit off the road during the course of trying to get out). Looking at the hole where I got out of I couldn?t believe it. That thing was about 2.5’ deep. I parked in the middle of the road and got wadered up.
Forget this I am going fishing I said to Chris. I had not seen another car or plow all morning on this section so I decided just to leave my vehicle in the middle of the road. I made my way down to the water and began to fish. It was not long until I got my first take.
I set the hook and it was fish on. I fought this bow and got him close enough to see. He was not a monster or anything but was nice. I went to net him and he popped off. Darn! I don’t believe it I thought to myself. I resumed fishing. I ended up LDRing every other fish I hooked that day. I did get a few close enough to see and most of them were bows. I did see one whitefish in there.
I don’t know if I was flustered or what but I could not land a frickin fish to save my life that day. Chris did not do much better either. The only fish he landed was a 24" sucker. Chris was starting to freeze and said that he wanted to go. By this time it was two in the afternoon. Personally I wanted to stay but it is no fun being out on the river if your feet and legs are freezing.
We headed back home not really saying much. As we drove back we laughed as we passed a police roadblock. Yes they had actually closed the highway that we took to get there. This must have happened after we had gone through. It makes sense though as it literally had snowed hard all that day too. For those of you asking about the lack of pics in this report I will say this. Yes I took the camera but I was a bit too flustered to actually take any pics at all.
