Trees Breeze: canoe

Showing posts with label canoe. Show all posts

Monday, July 28, 2014

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

While eating locally in the north has its own trials, nature's bounty and long growing days offset some of these challenges. Hillsides pregnant with saskatoons in August, competing with the black bears on sandy pine flats for blueberries, shooing the neighbourhood cats (yes, plural) out the the garden/litter box like it's a sport.

Home to world-class hunting and fishing, it's unusual that a Chetwynd summer BBQ passes without game meat or freshly caught fish making it on to the grill.

A misread slopitch schedule left last night open for an evening fish on Big Lake, 45 minutes northeast of Chetwynd. I hooked up with my found-on-the-road rod into a 56 cm pike. Eyeballing it bigger than previous catches on Jackfish, Dan bonked it on the head with a paddle and slung it behind the boat through-the-gills-and-out-the-mouth style. A botched filleting left us with bones to pick out of our teeth, but the work was worth the prize.

Pretend this isn't blurry

A bald iggle keeping watch

I dehooked my second one

Released for another day

Pre-gutting

Season score, btw is Sheri: 7 Dan: 0

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Weekend fishing soured by motors

Alert, alert Fish Cops of Region 7B: there's poachers/cheaters zooming around on powered boats on Jackfish Lake northeast of Chetwynd, British Columbia.

Looking south down Jackfish

Whether these rogue fishermen zoomed to the far end of the lake, their wake pouring over the gunnels of a people powered canoe, to avoid the scarce enforcement officers or off to a known booner habitat on Saturday I'll never know as the unpredictable winds kept Dan and I harboured in sheltered bays and close to the launch.

Back on the fresh water after a four year hiatus, I was surprised when I hooked up after only an hour on the lake. Used to fighting Bimini's13-pound barracudas, the northern pike offered comparatively little of a struggle. Shrieks of excitement as the fish was landed, dehooked and photos snapped, I released it for another day.

Four more hours on the water under glorious sunshine and another four fish followed, my second hooked deeply in the guts. Accustomed to staying with a shark doing poorly, we stayed with and swam the pike til it was sufficiently moving under its own power.

Content to paddle and keep the canoe from turning into a submarine, Dan experienced fishing on Jackfish vicariously through silence shattering squeals when I hooked up. Not nearly as pervasive as the constant, full-on serenity wrecking motors about the lake, I was thrilled to be back on the water. A fishing rod and reel I found on the Bearhole Lake FSR north of Tumbler Ridge last summer will be my instrument of choice this season as I hope to explore the many lakes and streams B.C. has to offer.

First pike

Second one, hooked deeply and bleeding. We stayed with it til it satisfactorily swam off.

Prime bow location

Stern man Dan having a go with his fly rod

Lovely loon

Whoops! Fish are slippery!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Pace of the paddle

The end of May Long and the start of Days Off mercifully overlapped for a day. Understandably bagged out from fourteen day of transitioning from a Lady of Leisure back to a Wage Earning Sucker, I embraced a half day of lazy paddling with friends over the weekend.

Dan strapped the Clipper to the Civic while friends Shaun and Angie successfully navigated us to Half Moon Lake, 45 minutes northeast of Chetwynd, with The Mink atop their outfit.

We spotted the lake ages before we actually reached it along a south facing ridge. The launch clearly visible, the dirt path through the aspen eventually delivered us there. Sheltered from the little wind blowing, the birding was spectacular.

Kingfishers, swans, red wing blackbirds and ducks sailed, hunted and flew around us as we glided through their homes. An owl called from the woods while a cow moose and calf scurried up the slope to safety.