I set out yesterday for a 1.5 day trip to have a little fun learning how well thing go when you rely on just a fishing rod. To be honest, I did sneak a little food into one of my hipbelt pockets. I brought:
– Oatmeal (2 packets for 1 small breakfast)
– Starbucks Via (1 packet for 1 cup coffee)
– ZipLock bag of Lemon Pepper Shake n Bake for fish
I definitely learned a lot about relying on a fishing rod. Here's some lessons:
1) Bring enough splitshot! I only brought three and two cracked open quickly and the third was lost the first evening on a snag. That eliminated 7 out of 10 lures because those 7 were too light to cast effectively without weights (Lure Count: 3).
2) Better still, bring lures that are a little bigger so that can be cast at least moderately well without splitshot.
3) When you're down to 3 lures and you get a snag in about 2 feet of water, go and get it! Don't pull on the line until it breaks and then you can't spot where the lure was (Lure Count: 2)
4) Don't do stupid stuff like trying to change you gloves while 1 of your 2 remaining lures sinks and snags on the bottom (Lure Count: 1).
5) Find a way to prevent fish from getting away! I lost 4 out of 5 fish that were on the line.
The first evening I had a fish get away early and then I got no action from about 5pm until 9pm. Right when it was getting too dark to fish at 9:10pm I got a nice trout on the line. I fought it for a while and got it right up to shore. I should have just yanked it onto the beach but I reached down to grab it and it jumped out of the shallow water and tossed the hook. No supper the first night.
The next morning I had another fish on the line while my breakfast was cooking but again it got away. Ditto a 4th time a few hours later. Finally around 2pm after probably 10 hours of total fishing time I caught one. This time I wasn't messing around. I just reeled it right up onto the beach and then grabbed it.
That fish was a small trout (180g, yes I brought my scale) but I was thrilled to have something to eat since I'd only had 2 small packets of oatmeal in the past 24 hours. Shortly after I caught this fish I lost my last 'cast-able' lure due to a bad cast onto a floating log (Lure Count: 0). I tried fishing for a bit longer with a lighter lure but it was useless when you can only cast 10-15" and the lake doesn't get deep until 5-10 feet out.
Despite my fish being rather small, I filleted it because I wanted to use the Shake 'n Bake which is super tasty. I used my 1.75" blade Buck Hartsook knife (0.5oz) which would have worked well but my finger were numb from the cold temps.
Stats:
Weight of Fishing Gear: 10oz
Weight of Meat Caught: 3oz
Cost of Fishing Tackle Lost: $20
Time Spent Fishing: ~10 hours
Pictures:
Trailhead:
This is the lake I'll be fishing in. Over the 1.5 days I hiked/bushwacked to the far end and back (11 miles total).
Morning Coffee:
Got a bit of snow higher up last night:
My trout dancing on the shore:
Shake 'n Bake Trout coming right up!
MMmmmhhmmmmmhhhMMMMMMMhhmmm:
