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The Reel Thing
February 2008Hi all you beautiful people. This will be the second edition of our somewhat newly revised "The Reel Thing" and nobody is more pleased to be putting it together once again. It would not have been possible for "The Reel Thing" to continue as it has done since my absence, although I must say that while I was enjoying those interminably long months my son, Ron, did a splendid job of filling in for his old man.
Last week, Paul Kennedy and I finally got to go up north to fish the lovely lakes around the edge of Algonquin Park on the northern parameters of Haliburton, our favourite stompin’ grounds. It’s the first time we have been able to get up there to give it a go since my hip operation and most of the year was shot for us up there…..for me, anyhow. We were not disappointed. Simply getting back up there into God’s country, being able to fight our way through the waist-high snow, then breaking through the bush where, with the clouds clearing the blinding brightness forced us to pause for a moment to squint through our face shields so as to regain our equilibrium. Once back onto the lake, we cranked up the throttle and raced to a shoal well down the lake where once before we had excellent fishing. Paul riding the skis behind the machine, trailing the big old skiboose, made an impressive sight with the plumes flying high in the air while he hung on for dear life.
The ten inch deep holes were cut through less than eighteen inches of ice in record time with the power drill. I cleared enough room around the holes so that we could anchor the Buzzers in the ice chips and packed snow so that we could set up our rigs properly. The first hole that Paul cleared and set up produced action right away as the old Fish-O-buzzer began beeping incessantly. As I ploughed my way to get over to the camera I watched him carefully work the trout into the tunnel-like hole. He resisted several times, and each time somehow managed to get down again and make another, short, but powerful run. But persistence and skill prevailed and in less than ten minutes, Paul was displaying his catch for the camera.
Shortly thereafter, although he had yet to clear and set up his own station, he was right back into action. With barely a pause I was landing, this time, a gorgeous, fat splake while Paul idly grinned and suggested that I stop fiddling with my own tackle. “Okay,” I said, “somebody has to catch the damn things, Paul, so it might just as well as be the old guy, right?” But it wasn’t to be, at least not this time as he took a break from catching fish and busied himself with the fire that he was patiently constructing with bits of kindling and branches. Because we had a late start to the morning for a number of reasons, I managed to only have a couple of chances to strike pay-dirt, only connecting on a couple of the buzzers. Not to worry, it was a super day in the north. "So what more could we wish for anyhow?", we said while planning the next sortie during the trip home.
Another startling tidbit for you to hear concerns the huge number of crawfish that we removed from their stomachs, at least two dozen. The most I’ve ever seen, with one other catch taken out of Beanpole almost the same.
Back in the gym. I have to report one of the best things to have happened since Sharon first began casting with the club. Somehow or another, a couple of weeks ago everything suddenly clicked into place. After building a couple of fine bamboo rods of her own she was fly casting and throwing a beautiful loop……better watch out George, Jim et al. Sheila is continuing to sharpen her own plug casting stroke and is looking forward to making waves in San Francisco in the Nationals in August. We have been guaranteed that our club members who make the trip to the Nationals will be funded for the first five hundred dollars of their travel expenses. That should certainly be enough incentive for our "team" to give every consideration to their casting program and practice diligently every moment that they spend in the gym. We have enough verbal commitments from the club already to field a full team and from what we have seen from their folks in the past, there is every reason to believe that the effort we expend to achieve the desired results will prove warranted.
Although our bamboo rod program suffered from a lack of participants when I was ill for so long, Bert has jumped in with both feet and is well on his way to building one of our most popular models for himself. I know a few of our fine folks got sidetracked when I was under the weather, but the bamboo you cut is still ready for you when you would like to get back to it again. Meanwhile, last week, we had a record number of participants in our shop, fly tying, just talking fishing and so on. It was standing room only but a lot of fun…..and isn’t this really what this is all about?
Tight Loops Gang
Gord
