Was up at our cabin at Green lake over the weekend. Usually just my wife and me these days as the kids have grown up and their work schedules don't always allow them to come with us. This weekend though, my brother and one of his sons (Nick) came along as did my sister. Other than me, Nick was the only one that was willing to get out of bed before 7 so the two of us headed over to Watch Lake.
It was a beautiful morning, and there was an abundance of wildlife about. Between our cabin and Watch Lake we saw 10 deer, a flock of American White Pelicans, two Sandhill Cranes, a marmot, several hawks and a bald eagle.
Hardly anyone on the lake when we got there and had my favourite spot to ourselves except for the ever-present loons and the occasional flyby from a resident osprey.
Unloaded the boat, tied on a couple different patterns recommended by the gang at Hatch Matchrs and got down to rowing. Not 15 minutes in, and less than a couple hundred metres from the launch, a fish hit my fly with a vengeance, pulling off quite a bit of line on the strike and leaping clear of the water several times. After that, it went so placid that I though I'd lost it. Stripped the line in and got the fish to the boat, a little one (1 lb-ish) by Watch Lake standards and very dark. Almost looked like a spawner, and against Nick's wishes I slipped the hook and let it go for another day.
Managed to get a couple more hits in the next hour or so, but Nick was getting a bit cold/tired/bored so we decided to make one more pass through the fav spot and head back to the shore. Just as we made the turm where we'd picked up the fish earlier, Nick got a good strike on his line and he had a fish on! This one also came in pretty quietly, but when it got close to the boat we could see it was more typical of Watch Lake, super bright and quite plump even though it wasn't a huge one. Amazing how that can make a young lad go from cold/tired/bored to glowing/excited/happy in a matter of seconds! Kept this one for breakfast and headed back to the cabin.
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Topic: Watch Lake, May 20th 2012 (Read 1190 times)