A Lake Within Driving Distance of Olympia

Yesterday Chelle called from the road telling me that the weather looked better and asking why don’t I go fishing? I checked out the river levels (most of them are blown because of the off and on rain) and decided that maybe it’d be a better time to take the boat around a lake.

Lowland lake fishing is a weird game in Western Washington. The population along the I5 cooridor basically ensures that all of the lakes would be fished completely empty within a season so for decades now the Washington Fish and Game department has stocked these lakes with hundreds of thousands of fish every year. It’s kind of a quantity instead of quality type plan but I support it because it offers more opportiunity for people who otherwise would never get out, hook a trout, roll it in cornbread and fry in a greasy skillet. More kids in this part of the country learn to fish this way than any other probably. The basic gameplan for lowland lake fishing is to get out the boat with it’s electric trolling motor and more or less cover as much water as you can by trolling a spinner, spoon or more often bit of Berkeley Power Bait in the top 5 feet of water or so. In this regard it’s much like plunking where you bring a lawn-chair to a pond or slow pool in a river, cast your bait out and wait for the rod to jump. For this reason both trolling and plunking can be social affairs as much as exercises in fishing. The biggest difference is that when trolling in a boat there’s no getting away from your fishing partners, you’re closer together generally and only one or two more can come along. Usually that means more beer for both people involved.

I’ve plunked at places where a dozen people sat, drank and listened to music while their kids played in the grass. It’s about as far from fly fishing as you can get. More like a picnic where someone decided to bring a rod and these days picinics are altogether too rare.

I stated thinking about the last time I had a chance to fish on a Saturday, the fact that Grandpa doesn’t fish Sundays (church) and then Grandma called. First thing I asked her after saying hi was “What’s Grandpa up to today?”. With the second kitchen pass secured we set our rendevous at 12:30 at their place and I started getting the boat ready.

The lowland lake stocking program usually means that most of the fish are little 10in half pound rainbows. I had discerned however that there was a lake not far away that had much better quality fishing through one of the key receivers in my limited fishing intelligence gathering apparatus (FIGA). I got the name of the lake the previous week and when Grandma asked where we were going I told her. Her response was “Where?”. The Lake will remain nameless less a Valery Plame like incident brings down the FIGA Deputy Director of Intelligence. The Jacksontown President is good friends with the DDI’s boss and also happens to be my wife so don’t ask!

I picked up Grandpa at his house where he contributed a cooler, extra battery and fish basket to the cause and off we went. About the time he asked if we had hit the Canadian Border or not yet we saw the glint of sun on water flashing between the trees. I parked the truck and we walked on down to the ramp to see what was what. There was a steady one foot chop on the lake and the wind was almost howling. We looked at each other and wondered if this would be worth it. Trying to jockey a boat around a lake with an electric trolling motor with the wind pushing you around isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I looked across the lake and saw a treeline and did some thinking. The wind was coming out of the West and that side of the lake would be in the lee of the wind. We oughta at least try.

We both confirmed the plan, I backed the trailer down to the ramp, dumped the boat in and parked the truck. Then I jumped in, walked to the back of the boat, dropped the 25hp Evinrude and for a change the battery was fully charged, saving me the effort of having to work the pullcord, Grandpa pushed us off and deftly perched on the front deck. I shifted the Critter Getter into reverse to back us away from the bank, turned us around, shifted into forward and twisted the tiller handle down until the throttle was wide open. My hat flapped in the wind and Grandpa put up his hood (looking backwards from the front of the boat) to keep the spray and rain off of his face. A minute later we were on the west side of the lake where the chop was almost nonexistant and the wind was quiet enough we could hear each other.

We both rigged up, I fired up the electric motor and cast out to each side. We’d just started moving forward when Grandpa had a fish on! It put a nice bend in his old Eagle Claw fishing pole and the smile on his face said it all. It was not one of your good old I5 cooridor stockers. This was a nice fish. We boated the critter, hooked perfectly in the lower lip and tossed it in the basket after admiring it for a while. Instead of the faint purplish stripe along it’s body it had a bright pink/red stripe of a healthy rainbow trout. It was about 16 inches and FAT. We both commented about how Grandma’s eyes were going to pop out of her head when she saw the fish and how we were both glad that we didn’t toss in the towel and go to a bar.

We fired the motor back up, I missed a bite and rebaited, and trolled further up the Northwest shoreline. Swampy sections gave way to small beaches and behind it all a treeline of Douglas Firs going up a steep hill. On the Northern end of our run was a long series of pilings that looked for all the world like they belonged to an old logging railroad trestle from a long gone logging camp. Another boat was tied up there where it’s rumoured that the big bass in the lake like to hang out. About the time we both fell silent to feel the sun pop out of a rain squall to warm us up Grandpa had another fish. Healthy, red striped and just a little bit smaller than his cousin. We both whooped and hollered and turned the boat around for another run. Somewhere on the way back I picked up a rainbow and we got to thinking and talking again. I tossed Grandpa a cigar and we both struggled to light up in the wind and rain. Eventually we were both drawing on a small Macanudo and talking again. Two tiimes back and forth we went and on the second Grandpa changed from yellow power bait to red and hooked another nice fish. This time a cutthroat, spotted all over and still slightly silvered from late winter/spring spawning colors.

Our Cigars burnt out and we decided to call it quits. We headed back to the ramp (I had to fight with the Evinrude that decided to flood on me) sputtering while the motor fought to keep fire. We loaded the boat up and on the way home he told me about how he missed working and that his plan was never to retire in town and lead a quite life. His hope was to stay in the country and raise cattle and ranch to save some extra money but things change. He shared stories of working and living in a camp at Kenai Alaska while on a crew building two liquefied natural gas tanks. Stories of the workmen, bartenders, businessmen and hookers that lived there. Everyone packing a pistol even though company policy was no guns in camp. “The company line was that we weren’t supposed to have them in the camp but everyone knew it would have taken a two ton truck to haul them all out of there” he said. Near fights, his walks through the tundra on Sundays, keeping his lunch in hole he dug in the 6 inch frozen condensation on a break room window and then in the days after working Kenai, back in Washington, when his boys grew up and driving with them to work in Kelso, Longview, Tacoma, Everet and anywhere else they needed welders. “I gave them the only thing I had and that’s welding. Your Dad used it some, uncle Dan used it his whole life and now his boys use it and Jeffrey used it until he found another living too.” Someone taught my Grandpa to weld when he was 14 living in Oklahoma. “If it wasn’t for him who knows what would have happened to me.” I don’t know either but I’m very very proud to share my Grandpa’s name.