mmmmm, hows about a ...I know, a fish story

Yesterday I went fishing for Bass at Lake Pichachos with my Friend Dan, who fishes harder than ANYONE I've ever met. People tell me that I'm a hard guy but compared to Dan ol guide #003 is a piker. He tells me he's always been that way whether it's with fishing or business or whatever...I'm just glad I never had to work carpentry for him.

So it's up at 3:30 and at the lake for sunrise. with all the hundred, maybe thousands of trips I've done the sun up at the dock is always my favorite part, anticipation and the mystery of it just sets on the water along with the morning fog.

Now the boat I've lived half of my life in is a 21' ft Alumaweld with a six foot beam and 32 inch sides. With the high thrust Yamaha 50 on it it will do a steady 15 mph....Dans Bass boat is a 16 ft. Tracker with 20 inch sides and a 6 ft beam and 115 horsepower of Mercury and she does a breath taking 50 mph...so, I don't have to tell ya that getting used to going that fast and sitting so close to the water is going to take a few trips. I got the giggles pretty good as we flew across the flat calm lake.

Years ago for conservation I made a deal with Bill Dance that I'd lay off the Bass if he'd lay off the Salmon. Well, after I caught the first one of the day and he jumped so well I have to say that I'm going to be chasing these guys more in the future, catch and release of course.

As you can see it's really early and I still have my windbreaker on from high speed commute to work. We did some jerk bait fishing , we threw some Texas rigs and even tried those Magnum Wiggle Warts that were Bass lures until we discovered that they drive salmon crazy. Then as the heat of the day came around we fish a deep drops offs on a cliff with Lizards that we pitched, it was the best fun but....it was getting hot. In this pic of the biggest for me of the day I had put my pants back on because my legs were frying...

Dan tells me he frequently fishes sun up to sundown and has a nap at mid day under a shade tree...in the boat of course. I tell him the boat has a motor on it so it can take you someplace with a bed for that nap. He says I'm whining, I say I know and then I offered to show him my boat operating skills on the way back to the boat launch, which we did about 2:00, I'd call that a full 8 hour day, Dan would call that missing a chance for a 100 Bass day which I guess we would have achieved if I hadn't had a pizza party to go to. Did I mention it was mucho caliente ? Here's the boat being cranked on by Jamie our new support system and hows about that temp on the mirror...About the time I snapped the pic of the temperature Dan told me I was driving him crazy with all the pictures and then he power chugged 3 bottles of water....mmmm.....now who's crazy ?

Nets....it seems like my fishing is haunted  by the guys who get the wheat while guys like us get the chafe. I watched this guy run his net and and he had no Talapia but did have 2 bass. The nets are everywhere, in some places all the way across a bay from point to point. I don't know how the Bass survive just as I often wondered how the salmon survive and I guess now with just a bit of history behind me I'd say that most often in the long run they don't. At one point I had my jerk bait tangled in the net and it was a real mess and then my buddy handed me a pair of scissors and tells me it happens all the time....man oh man, I got a weird pleasure out of using those scissors on a gill net.

Speaking of nets ( hows that for a segway into a new topic ? ) the Alaska Board of Fisheries is done with the every three year Cook Inlet meeting and after decades of ignoring the growth and needs of sport fishing we have finally made some progress. without explaining the details we have seen a reallocation of fish, away form the commercial guys to favor the sport and personal consumption users. It's fantastic and for all of you in Alaska who read Mile 14 thank you for keeping the faith and not giving up, we're moving forward finally.

And in the fishing Karma department here's a pic of my friend Tom Welle and his grandson Hunter that I took this morning. We've missed a year together so when they showed up we chatted as Tom got Hunter set up to fish. I went back to throwing and was a couple hundred feet down the beach and watch Tom finally walk to the water and make his first cast....AND....walla, he's onto something huge. I hustled up the beach with my gaff hook but wasn't really needed. I think it's the biggest Pargo I've ever seen surf landed, good things happen to good people, it's that simple.