It's early June and we're still getting snow out here. Well at least at the higher elevations in the mountains. With up to 18 inches of new snow up high I was tempted to head to Rainier this past weekend for a splitboard session, but nuts to that it was the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife FREE FISH WEEKEND and Topher was willing to show me the ropes. Problem is Topher's knowledge of the 'ropes' is limited to MN, WI, and boundary waters fishin' and, well, i don't know sh*t about fishing. For those not in know, 'free fish weekend' means you don't need a license to fish in the state (freshwater, saltwater, or shellfish) but you still gots to abide by the state rules/limits. Lucky for me, Topher's got some extra gear and was willing to share it with me. We started out putting the canoe in on Lake Washington near the arboretum by Hwy 520 which is pretty shallow and full of weeds, herons, beavers, turtles, and apparently no stinking fish. I guess our major problem was we didn't know what kind of fish were in the area or what kind of bait/lures would work. We probably annoyed a bunch of rich people as we tried to catch fish that might be hiding underneath their fancy boats and docks. I did manage to hook some fancy lookin' kids raft with my lure and had to board the dock it was sitting on to get Topher's lure back. We paddled out to Madison Park, 'docked' the canoe at a public beach and got beers and pastrammy(sic) sandwiches at a nearby market. Madison Park is a pretty uppidy-rich Seattle neighborhood and we got some weird looks even though we weren't too smelly for wannabe fishermen. On our Lake Washington adventure we managed to catch a bunch of weeds , stick-bass, and lily pads. I don't think we even got a bite. We did see a ton of minnows that thought it was funny to jump out of the water all around the canoe though.
In a effort to redeem ourselves, we went to a dock on the Puget Sound (saltwater) near Golden Gardens. Too bad it was low tide and some 15 year old laughed at us because we didn't know what we were doing. To Topher's credit, I guess he did 'land' a piece of sea anenome (sp?) by accident.
It's cool though. I'm kinda excited to try more fishing this summer, especially after I learn a bit about the sport. I think this weekend was the first time I've gone fishing since grade school. I don' t know if it's because I'm getting older, because I like getting away from 'people', because beer was involved, or a combination of all three but I can see myself getting into this.
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