There is one thing that has really been good to me during this pandemic. Fishing. And, well, having time to catch up on a lot of content too. There is a lot of really good content being produced now.
Back to fishing. As I’ve written before, we have a cabin on a lake, northwest of Fort Collins. A lot of people tell me that I should call it a “lake house”, but that sounds ostentatious to me. So, cabin it is.
These particular lakes at Red Feathers are all private. There are State lakes nearby too. Fishing in the private lakes is not inexpensive, but to me it’s worth it. Last year I did horribly at actually catching a fish. Mostly I fished at the lake across the road from my cabin. It’s a catch and release lake (but you can keep one a day), so there are some really large fish in there. I just caught a nice one today. A 15-½” cutbow (a cutthroat-rainbow hybrid). It put up a really good fight. I love a good fighter. I rarely release a fish, especially if I think I may have harmed it. I see way too many dead fish floating out on this lake. Sad.
I recently discovered the art of fishing with PowerBait. Okay, it’s not an art. My usual way to fish is with a lure, whether it’s on shore or on my boat. But when I want to “for sure” catch fish, I go to another lake and use PowerBait. When I’m out on another lake using PowerBait, I’ve been using the old steel fishing pole that my grandmother gave me… almost as many years ago as I am old. It has a plastic grip that sort of looks like ivory. It feels good to catch fish on that old pole.
I’ve tried to fly fish many, many times, but without luck. I’m sure that I could understand it a little better, but I know it isn’t all skill and knowledge. I see people using dry flies with weights, floating line with weights and other things that don’t make a lot of sense. One told me that she was using a dry fly, but she likes to get it really wet. Whatever. Still, maybe someday I’ll learn to catch a fish by fly fishing.
Until then, I’ll just enjoy the Zen pleasures of reeling in a really good fighter.