The landscape is brown, the rivers are brown and even my silver Tacoma is now mostly brown. The ice is off and about three hours from now we will be rolling into our destination where everything will still be brown.
Joel’s Place:
I arrive at Joel’s just after four in the morning, his gear is piled beside an open garage; a case of PBR, a rod that has three of four pieces together, fly boxes and a pair of slippers. He stumbles out of a sliding door with two armfuls of gear and says he will be ready in five. With a sarcastic smile on my face I ask him, “What’s up with the rod beside the garage?”
“Don’t worry about it” Joel says with a smile.
“You know there is this great product out there called wax, great for preventing ferules from sticking together. It’s been around since forever and takes about seven seconds per ferule to apply”, I say.
Joel laughs. “Better action with stuck ferules man.”
As we load the truck I remind Joel he is the only fly fisherman on the planet that has a three car garage with two empty spots and doesn’t own a boat of some kind. The truck is loaded and we are gone.
Arrival 7 am
Nearing the lake you can feel the uneasiness build as we get close. Semi-slouched in my seat, eyes almost closed shut it’s a wonder I can stay on the road as we crest the hill. The flags are at half value, we’re good. We won’t have to worry about the weekend wrecking prairie winds… for now. Cam is sitting on the back of his tailgate as we drive by. Joel starts listing off the license plates at the boat launch; Nevada, Alberta, Alberta, Colorado, Alberta, Minnesota, Alberta, North Dakota, Alberta, Saskatchewan and one more Alberta, a full house.
The better half of an hour is spent finishing our coffee, setting up the rods and getting the boat ready to kick out. Just as we finish and I am about to back the boat in Cam shouts over at me, “You might want to wait!” nodding over towards the boat launch. I look over and see a bright yellow kayak, lunch bag, gear bag, fly rod and fly box piled in the middle of the launch all leading to an older than middle aged gentleman wearing a tan Tilley, a tan vest and a tan shirt sitting on his ass struggling to get his tan waders on. The irony of a bright yellow kayak and tan ensemble brings a smile to my face.
“Is this guy for real?” I ask.
“He’s wearing a Tilley, that’s as real as it gets,” Cam says.
Looking over at Cam and Joel I realize this is all on me and they have taken up front row seats while I make my way over to the gentleman who’s now cutting into our fishing time. He finishes pulling up his waders as I near.
Banana boat guy says, “You been out yet?”
“Ahhhhhh, nope not yet.”
“I’m planning a 24hr straight fish. Saw this great video on browns after dark, catching them on mice. Can you believe that?”
“That’s… really great,” I say. “So you got a bit of a gypsy caravan going on here, which is fine I guess, but it’s right in the middle of the boat launch.”
“Oh Geez, you’re right.”
I help the gentleman gather up his gear, untwist the straps on his waders and slide his kayak over, then make my way back to the peanut gallery. Cam and Joel are sporting two big smirks and throw in a slow clap to boot.
On the Water
Whiskey is waiting impatiently in the boat and voicing his opinion as only a four year old shepherd can do. Apparently Joel and I weren’t the only ones anticipating the first trip of the year. Using the Etec as a backrest I navigate to our first anchor point, Joel goes over our usual wagers to make sure we are on the same page;
- Most fish caught for the weekend: dinner at DQ on the way back.
- Biggest fish caught each day: a pint of beer, location TBD at a later date.
*All fish must be 20 inches or over to count
Squared up to the bank about 50 feet from shore both anchors are dropped. Joel starts launching casts right off the hop as I peel line off the reel and onto my slippers. The line is coiled in a tight corkscrew of 6 months and 27 days of memory. It’s too late to regret my decision not to hang my lines after cleaning them this winter, I’m here now and only one good cast away from a straight line. I look over and the morning sun is silhouetting Cam perfectly as he rows to shore, I opt for camera over rod to start the day.
“You going to fish or what?” says Joel.
“There are no fish in this spot. I just anchored up here to sort my gear out,” I say sarcastically.
“No man, we’ve caught fish here… do you ever say anything that isn’t sarcastic?”“Nope.”
A silvery flash out of the corner of my eye grabs my attention with a simultaneous, “There we go!” from Joel.
I grab the net and make the transition from cameraman to net man, just in time to scoop up a scrappy Rainbow well over the 20 inches required.
“First twenty inch-er of the day,” Joel says with a smile.
Joel explains the situation to Cam, arguing the fact that the bet is fish not Brown Trout.
My rebuttal is, “Do Suckers count then?”
“Bi-catch dude,” Cam responds without a pause.
We laugh it up and continue leapfrogging each other around the lake. Three hours later the fishing has become full stop. Strategy change, we bury ourselves deep into the bull rushes picking a spot that leaves three open casting lanes coming off the bow labelling them east, west and north. No more blind casting. It’s now a one-rod boat. Our set up is simple, front man is on the rod and spotting, rear man is spotting, netting and behind the lens, alternating positions after each cast. The sun pushes our shadows away from the casting lanes as we scan the water. A dorsal fin slowly ripples through the bull rushes approaching the east lane. Joel calmly waits, lays down a cast and with two hard strips is hooked up. The angst from our last three hours has been swallowed up and erased. Over the next five or so minutes, Joel navigates the fish through the bull rushes back to the boat. A solid hook jawed, deep yellow bellied, male Brown. This colour of brown is the reason why the campsite is overflowing and this is the colour of brown we came for.