By; Dave Rice
An Epic Fishing Trip Day 1
A long time ago a bunch of guys and I decided to go on a fishing trip. We decided that we would take a couple of jet boats and travel up the large river near our town and into a small lake surrounded by mountains. There weren’t any roads to this lake so we planned to run up the river, up a creek that drained the lake and into the lake. The lake was known to be home for some very large Lake Trout as well as numerous Rainbow Trout, and Bull Trout.
We decided that the best time to go was just after the ice was off the lake and we hoped that the Lake Trout would still be near the surface and not 100 feet in the depths of the lake. We watched our local lakes and made plans to go on our trip the long weekend of May and we would stay for the whole week. We were looking forward to the first fishing trip of the year and catching some really nice Lake Trout.
One of our buddies had a 16 foot Grumman canoe and he said he would go with us but would go up the river in the canoe ahead of us. He said if he couldn’t go all the way up the river, it probably wouldn’t be worth it to go to the lake, and he would come back home before the weekend. This was in the days before cell phones and internet so we wouldn’t have any contact with him once he left town. He said if we didn’t hear from him to come on in the lake. He would meet us at his favorite camp at the far end of the lake.
On the Saturday of the May long weekend we met up and took off from town with a land cruiser jeep pulling an 18 foot Jon boat powered by an outboard jet and a pickup pulling a 23 foot inboard jet boat. We left early almost before sunrise and travelled down the highway for about an hour and then on a system of well travelled logging roads, for about another 2 hours. At about 9 am was when the fun began.
We were travelling along with no concerns or problems when we came across a couple of guys in a pickup with a large Peterborough style canoe on a trailer behind. They were stopped on the road and as we pulled up beside them we realized that they were stopped because the road had been severely washed out. The creek had risen and cut a slot in the road about 12 feet across and 5 feet deep. As we were standing there looking at the washout, it looked like our trip was going to be over before noon on the first day.
We were not a group to be easily defeated by a little water and we did have a week to play in woods. We decided that we would build a bridge and cross the washout with all of the trucks and boats. Our first challenge was to get to a stand of trees on the other side of the creek.
Two of us took our chainsaws and dropped a tree across the creek and used it as a bridge to get to the other side. Once on the other side of the creek we started falling trees to be used as a bridge. We felled 6 trees that were about 14 inches in diameter and as we used the winch line on one of the trucks and a snatch block to get the trees up on the road. Once the trees were on the road we cut them all to the same length.
Meanwhile the rest of the team dug a shelf in the edge of the washout to accommodate the ends of the logs. By about 1 PM we were ready to put our bridge together. We skidded all of the logs across the washout using 3 logs per track. We then tied the logs together with come-a-longs and ratchet straps so that they wouldn’t spread apart when we put weight on them.
We were finally ready to test our new bridge and get on with our expedition. We decided that we would take the lightest vehicle across first. We the Land Cruiser and the Jon boat went across we couldn’t believe how solid the bridge looked. The weight of the truck and trailer hardly made the bridge timbers sag at all. Next across was the pickup and bigger boat. Again the bridge held and we were quite amazed that we had actually conquered this obstacle. Last across was our new friends with the pickup and canoe.
We gathered all of our come-a-longs and ratchet straps and after a short lunch, we carried on towards our destination. After about another 20 miles on an excellent clear road we came upon our next obstacle. The hillside had slid down across the road, blocking about 100 yards of the road with a mud slide.
We walked the mud slide and decided that since all three vehicles had winches that we could get through the mudslide one way or another. We sent the Land Cruiser and Jon boat through first and about 20 yards from the other end of the slide it sunk in the mud and we had to winch it the rest of the way.
Next was the pickup and the large boat. We only got about 40 yards into the mud and the truck and boat trailer sunk to their frames. The more we tried, the deeper the truck got in the mud. We unhooked the trailer from the Land Cruiser and brought it back in to the mud to use as an anchor for winch lines. Using the winches on both trucks we were able to move the big pickup only about another 10 yards then everything came to a halt. It was now time to break out the shovels and jacks.
While half of the team dug out the mud and jacked up the truck, the other half started turning trees in to planks with our chainsaws. We would jack up the truck and boat, put planks under the wheels and then winch the truck and trailer off the end of the planks and then do it again. About that time it started to rain and everything turned to soup. The rain fell and the water ran down off the hill into our mud hole. Every move we made just made more fun in the mud.
We finally got the big pickup and boat through the mud and started working on getting the pickup and canoe through the same path. This time we got stuck almost immediately. This time it took twice as much shoveiling, twice as much jacking and twice as many planks to get the third truck through the mud hole. Finally at about 5 PM we finally were on the road again. From here the last 20 miles to the river were clear sailing and uneventful. Our only concern was that on the way home we would have to repeat the process of getting through the mud and across the washout.
At the river when we tried to launch the boats, the river was so low that we didn’t have enough water to float the boats off the trailers. We ended up dumping the boats over a steep bank in to the river using the winches on the trucks. The good thing was that it had stopped raining. Finally with the boats in the river we loaded our gear and under the watchful eyes of a mother black bear and her 2 cubs we started off up the river. When we parked the trucks we parked them about 10 feet above the water line, anticipating that with the warm weather the river would come up at least a couple of feet.
The trip up the river was uneventful and we saw several Moose, another Black Bear, a Grizzly bear and several eagles. When we got to the creek that leads to the lake were going to, there was 2 guys camped at the mouth of the creek. We stopped to chat with them and they told us that they had spent all day coming this far on the river from a launch point further down the river and had tried to get to the lake but there was a beaver dam in the way. They intended to spend the night at the mouth of the creek and try again to run the creek in the morning.
We put the big jet boat in the lead and started up the creek. Suddenly we came to the beaver dam and didn’t have time to stop. The operator pinned the throttle and we busted through the dam and out the other side. The smaller Jon boat and the canoe followed easily behind. After about another ½ hour of busting through several more beaver dams, we finally arrived at the lake.
We suddenly realized that the lake was still almost completely covered with several inches of ice.
We were supposed to meet our buddy that had left a couple of days before us at the far end of the lake. He had come up ahead of us in his 16 foot Grumman canoe, to set up camp and get a head start on the fishing. There he was sitting on the shore of the lake at the edge of the ice holding a beer beside the fire.
As the darkness closed in on the frozen lake we pulled in to the camp and joined our buddy in his new camp.
Day 2 Sunday
After an adventurous first day, we arrived in camp pretty much in the dark. The good part was that our buddy had arrived at the lake a couple of days ahead of us and had the camp all set up. The best part was the bed of coals in the fire pit, and a grill to throw the steaks on. After a great dinner and a few cocktails we retired for the night.
Our new friends with the large canoe had chosen a campsite closer to the mouth of the creek. They had set up their tent on a small ledge at the edge of the trees and had their campfire next to the water. We were sleeping in the jet boats so it was easy to set up, and we didn’t have to worry about the limited amount of space on the small point of rock the new camp was on.
It rained most of the night but in the morning the sun came out and the birds were singing and we were all eager to get up and start catching the big Lake Trout we had heard so much about. After a great breakfast and lots of hot coffee we set out to find our prey. We ran across the little bit of the lake that had open water but didn’t see any fish in the clear water and didn’t catch anything using several different fishing lures. We even tried using bread and breakfast sausage for bait, but no luck.
Since we weren’t having any luck fishing, we spent a couple of hours breaking ice with the boats and pushing large chunks of rotten ice towards the creek. We made quite a lot of progress and by lunch time had opened up a lot more of the lake.
We went back to camp for lunch and spent most of the afternoon around the campfire telling stories. Later in the afternoon a couple of the guys climbed up the rocks behind our camp and took a look at the lake with binoculars. They were hoping to see that there was open water further up the lake. That was not the case and they reported that the lake was covered in ice all the rest of the way up the valley.
They also noticed that there were several big dark shadows cruising along the edge of the ice and around the lake just off the shoreline. We took the boats and started trolling the shoreline and the edge of the ice with an assortment of Lake Trout lures. After an hour we still had not caught a fish. We stopped the boats and looked down in the clear water. It was so clear it was like looking through a glass of tap water. The bottom of the lake consisted of white sand with a few dark rocks strewn around.
In between the rocks we could see the huge Lake Trout just sitting there in the water a couple feet from the bottom. The Trout didn’t move, they just sat there resting in the clear water. We tried everything to catch them, offering them every kind of lure we had. We even sent down a downrigger weight to see if we could hit them, they just moved aside and the weight went to the bottom. Using the downrigger weight we did find out that the water was about 30 feet deep and the Trout were hanging out at about 25 feet. We estimated that some of the Lake Trout were in the 40 pound class.
After a couple of hours of trying everything we had to catch these big Trout we gave up and went back to camp. Sitting in camp we could see the fish cruising the base of the rock our camp was sitting on. We tried casting to them as they went by but we didn’t get a single bite. It was a humbling experience for a bunch of guys that were excellent and very productive fishermen.
A couple of the guys decided to go get some fire wood. They took the Grumman canoe and went back down the creek a short distance and cut down a couple of dead trees. When they came back to camp a couple of hours later, they had the canoe piled high with logs. The pile was so high that the motor operator had to stand up to see over the pile. They had also caught 3 Bull Trout at the mouth of the creek. At least our group had caught some fish for the day. The 3 fish were all about 4 pounds each and we cooked them over the campfire for dinner.
That evening we spent sitting around the campfire, telling tales and watching the stars and the Northern lights. The moon shone on the lake and we could hear the howls of wolves the strange cries of Bittern across the lake. At about midnight a thunder storm came into the valley and it started to rain. The thunder was so loud that it sounded like we were in a steel barrel and someone was banging on it with a pipe. After awhile the thunder quieted down but it continued to rain for the rest of the night.
Day 3 Monday
Just before dawn we were awakened by our guys who were sleeping in a tent on the camp rock yelling and banging on pots. When the shotgun went off we decided it was time to get up. We found out that they were putting the run on a 2 year old Grizzly cub. The bear had wandered in to our camp and was rummaging around trying to open one of the coolers. The shotgun blast sent the bear packing and we never saw it again.
It was still raining steadily but the thunder and lightning had passed. We had a long breakfast and planned our strategy for the day. We decided that maybe with the rain disturbing the surface of the lake, the big Trout wouldn’t be able to see us as well and just maybe they would take a lure. Our friends with the big canoe came by and said that overnight the water of the lake had come up about a foot and that their campfire site had been washed away. They said that they had a magic bait they were going to try so we all put our rain gear on and went fishing.
We spent all morning fishing the small space of open water. We had a total of 8 lines in the water with 2 canoes and 2 jet boats in a space of about 5 acres of lake. Not a fish was caught and the rain kept falling. Around noon we gave up and went back to camp for lunch. We stayed in camp most of the afternoon as the rain came down.
Late in the afternoon we decided to try it again and took to the lake. All of the rain falling had formed a small creek on the other side of the lake. The new creek was spewing mud, and debris in to the lake. The muddy plume spread out into the lake and every time we trolled across the edge of the discolored water we caught a fish. We ended up catching 10 fish between the eight of us. All them were Bull Trout and all were in the 2 to 6 pounds range in size. We kept enough fish for dinner and returned to camp. In the evening the thunder storms returned and the heavy rain came back with the odd bout of hail.
We turned in to a load symphony of thunder and heavy rain. At least we had caught a few fish today. But no Lake Trout at all.
Day 4 Tuesday
After raining steadily all night with lots of thunder echoing down the valley the day dawned clear with bright blue skies and a steady wind. It was clear in the sunshine that the snow around us and the ice on the lake was melting steadily. We discovered that the lake had come up at least a foot in the last day.
Our canoe buddy said that he thought he should head for home today while the weather was nice and before the river got too high. While we were having breakfast, our friends with the large canoe came by and said that their campsite was almost under water and that they were heading for home today. The rest of us decided that we would go down the creek to the river with the 2 canoes and check out the situation.
One of the guys that came with us in the jet boats went with our friend in the Grumman canoe to help him with any Beaver dams or other obstacles that they may run into. The rest of us ran down the creek in the Jon boat with the canoes. It looked like the main river was already at least 2 feet above where it was when we came up four days ago. All of the Beaver dams on the creek were blown out and no longer presented any problems for any of the boats.
We said goodbye to the canoe crews and ran back up the creek to the lake. After a long lunch we tried our hand at fishing the lake again. The fishing was much better and the four of us left ended up catching about 20 fish for the day including 5 small Lake Trout. The rest of the fish were all Bull Trout in the 2 to 6 pound class. Good fishing but no huge Lake Trout.
We also noticed that every time we went back to camp that the water was higher on the rocks surrounding the camp. The water in the lake was coming up steadily. We started to think that although we still had 5 days left in our trip, we might be wise to head for home a little earlier than anticipated.
But the weather was nice, the sky was blue and it warm enough to be out in shirt sleeves. The lake for the most part was calm and we even tried to bomb the huge Lake Trout that we could see on the bottom with downrigger weights. One of the guys had shot a couple of Snow Shoe Hares the night before and we even tried using the fur and leftover meat for bait to entice the giants. No luck, but the Bull Trout sure liked the extra bait.
We spent the evening listening to the water lapping on the rocks closer and closer to camp and the sound of the ice shifting on the lake.
Day 5 Wednesday
The day dawned clear but windy. The wind was strong enough that there was white caps on the open part of the lake. We spent most of the day in camp watching as the ice on the lake broke up into sheets of various sizes. The sheets were blown past our camp towards the creek and by late afternoon they started to pile up at the mouth of creek and back into the lake. The open part of the lake was now covered in a sea of ice bergs of various sizes all jammed together trying to get into the creek.
By evening the ice was piling up around the boats. It was interesting to watch as the wind pushed the ice around sometimes causing small sheets to blow up on top of the sheets ahead of them. We were starting to wonder how long it would take for the ice to clear and if we were going to be able travel across the lake and down the creek when we decided to pack up and go home.
Late in the evening the thunder and the rain returned and we turned in to a symphony of noise from above and the sound of the boats moving in the ice. The storm increased through the night and didn’t let up until well past midnight.
Day 6, Thursday
It had rained all night fairly hard and the thunder storms rolled down the valley bouncing off the mountain peaks almost continuously. The water around the boats was now 3 feet higher than last night. The ice was gone, the creek was gone, the lake was gone, we were now floating in a huge sea of Brown water that covered the whole valley. All of the remaining ice in the lake had been dragged by the current to the far side of the lake. The river was driving large pieces of ice up on to the bent over willows.
We decided that it was time to go home and we were thankful that our fishing partner had chosen this new campsite. It was about the only bit of dry ground as far as we could see. And we weren’t sure how long that was going to last. We had a quick breakfast, packed our gear in the boats and pushed off into the current. We aimed in the general direction of the creek and it was quite a challenge to stay in what we thought was the course of the creek. Most of the time we were off in the woods and ended up just following the current North.
When we got to the River, we hardly could tell the difference and for the most part we just followed the current, dodging any rocks sticking out the surface and any trees that were being swept away by the river. We started to think that maybe the water in the river was too high for us to get under the bridge the trucks were parked beside and that we would have a lot of trouble getting the boats back on the trailers.
We were also not looking forward to fighting our way back through the mud slide and across the bridge we had built. We were also thinking about how many more creeks had blown out their culverts. It was looking like it was going to be a long day.
After about 2 hours of running across the sea of brown water we could see the bridge in the distance. There was plenty of room to run under the bridge but when we pulled into the launch site we were pretty much right up beside the trucks where we had parked them high above the water line 6 days ago.
Where it had been a challenge and had taken a couple of hours to launch the boats on the river, the high water made it really easy to put the boats back on the trailers. We had the trucks loaded and ready to go in mere minutes.
We had only driven a couple of miles when we came to a section of road that was washed away for a couple of miles. The creek had washed over it’s banks and followed the road taking all of the gravel and leaving a bed of rocks and sticks. The washed out area wasn’t too deep and we were able to drive the trucks down into creek and drive along the washout. It took us a couple of hours to work our way along the rock way.
When we got to the other end of the washout we were faced with a wall of dirt about 4 feet high. We got out the shovels and after a couple of hours we had a ramp to run the trucks up and with the help of our winches we got back up on the road and were once again on our way.
Several miles later we came around the end of the ridge where we knew we had fought our way through the mudslide and beside the road was sitting a 966 loader with a bucket on it. When we got to the mudslide, it was gone. The forest company had brought in a loader and completely cleared the road of all of the debris, rocks and mud. We sure glad to see that loader.
We started thinking that surely they hadn’t driven the loader across our bridge. Sure enough when we got to the location of the washout, our bridge material was in the ditch beside the road and there was a new 6 foot culvert installed in the roadway. We were very happy to see that we didn’t have to work as hard to get home as we had to get here 6 days before.
We later found out that the forest company had used our bridge for 2 days before they got the loader and the culvert to the washout. They were curious to know who the engineers were that built the bridge.
We made it back to town just before dark and were glad to be home. We had taken a trip that we would remember the rest of our lives. We didn’t catch a lot of fish and didn’t catch any of the Giant Lake Trout that we went after but we sure had an interesting adventure. It felt like we had been away for a month.