When opportunities come your way, what do you do?
Today, our family plans changed for the evening and so naturally I found myself getting ready for a quick evening fish on my local lake, Ten Mile.
Over the last couple weeks we have been enjoying the Cariboo weather we have come to love. We have loved the warm temperatures during the day and the cooler, sweater worthy weather in the evenings when the sun dips below the horizon. Tonight marked a shift in this weather and we saw 35 degree weather during the day that dipped to 21 degrees by 10pm. Our house is now back to a comfortable 27 degrees inside with no relief in sight until the next rain fall.
As we packed quickly for the lake, we felt like we were missing something. I continue to wish I had a checklist and followed it before each trip, but I fail every time to adhere to one. This time, we forgot our camera mount for filming our adventure, so we decided to take it easy and see if we could jig up some kokanee.
As we arrived at the launch, our adventure was delayed as we waited our turn to unload our boat in the water. While waiting, I counted many boats that were out enjoying the water, but not by fishing. I wasn’t in a rush because I usually find the fishing to be slower when the lake is full of recreational boats making noise, either by the sound of engines, music blaring, and people screaming. Thankfully, we had arrived late enough where most of the boat traffic had left the water and we were left with a couple boats floating around quietly.
I was successful jigging again (1 shy of my limit) and look forward to going back and trying my luck again. Austin, unfortunately had no luck landing a kokanee while jigging, but he did have a kokanee leap out of the water behind us in the boat and shake free moments later. I’ll never forget that fish. I also caught a fishing reel tonight. As I dropped my lure to the bottom, it snagged what I thought was bottom. I have only ever lost one dodger in Ten Mile to the bottom and so I wondered if I was going to loose my jig this time. Thankfully, whatever was holding it up broke free and I brought the reel to the surface. What a conversation piece. We spent the next hour trying to figure out the story behind this lost reel. Was there a rod down there too? Did the reel come off the rod and fall in the water? We may never know, but if you recognize this reel and would like it back, I’d love to hear the story on it.
The fish seemed to really be liking the Big-Nasty Tackle original glow rattle jigs, both in the small and larger sizes I have. Scent varied and we tried pink corn, anise corn, PowerBait panfish nibbles, gel scents and even mealworms. The winning bait tonight seemed to be our pink corn and anise corn.
While I landed 4 kokanee, I lost many others and had a lot of bites that I failed to connect to fish. We were able to find fish, but they do not seem to be schooled up as much as they were last weekend. I wonder if they are starting to spread out or if I simply did not find the larger schools of fish in the 2 1/2 hours we were on the water. The fish we did mark seemed to be moving around the water column from 18ft to the bottom, but the bite seemed off at first. As the lake started to quiet down, the bite picked up, but it felt like as soon as they started biting, they quickly stopped.
I enjoyed meeting one of our members out on the lake and spending some time jigging with our boats close to each other. I question if this might be an effective method of open water fishing and hope to try it again one day to see. After all, the more lines in the water, the longer the fish stay around, right?
Time always seems to fly when you’re having fun. While it felt like we just got there, the Cariboo sunset proved otherwise and it was time to go.
I look forward to another unexpected evening fish, because when a trip is unexpected my expectations seem to be lower and I enjoy it much more. I seem to slow down and take it all in more than normal when I’m fishing on unexpected time on the lake. The fish were rising all around us which made the Cariboo sunset that much sweeter.
As with most trips, when we got to shore I fetched the truck and trailer. Austin decided to spend some time on the dock while he waited for me to load up the boat. We bought a magnet this winter for magnet fishing, and today was our best haul ever. Austin caught some cool fishing lures and a metal piece that we are not sure what it is. If you recognize it, what is it?
As another fishing trip came to an end, the mosquitoes felt it necessary to grace us with their presence. Thankfully, only our legs donated to their cause. While we drove away, the excitement of trying something new and having success doing it felt great. What an opportunity we had and I look forward to the next time we get outside.