Lacamas Lake 9/26/07

Went out to Lacamas again last night. Got out there a little too late. Did not have much time.
Got skunked for the first time since I bought my canoe 9/1/07.

The closed face reel that I put on the small pole to replace the one that would not reel in the line without tension on it was doing the same thing...grrrrr arghhh. Either I do not understand how they work or I have two bad reels OR closed face reels just suck!

The guys on the forum at http://www.washingtonlakes.com/ were talking about how the expensive rod and reels do not preform any better the the less expensive and you are throwing your money away when you can buy a good reel for $65 and a really good rod for $100. HOLY CRAP! I splurged and spent $25 on a rod/reel combination with a gift card I got for my birthday. The rod broke when I tried to yank a snag loose and I had to Jerry-rig the handle on the reel. I buy most of my fishing stuff at thrift stores and garage sales. I have been checking craigslist (CL) for rods and reels and have not found any to run right over and buy. I do not know alot about them so it is hard to tell if it is a great deal. I did find one rod/reel combo I was going to get from CL for $50 that sounded cool, so I googled the rod and reel separately and found I could buy them new for about $65 combined. Somebody is trying to fool me.

Sergie was there on the dock fishing, I had met him a few weeks back when my son, Dave, went fishing with me. He is of Estonian origin and speaks Russian and Estonian and not enough English to get a cheeseburger. He is a citizen, but there is an exemption for learning English if you are over 55 years old. I do not think there should be an exemption for learning English. Our late president Calvin Coolidge said, "Anyone should be able to come to the US. After two years if they can not speak English we should send them back!" I could not agree more. The NES (non English speakers) are lazy and do not belong here. I know we are a country made of immigrants, but in the past they strove to become Americans. Now they want to be mexican-Americans or Russian-Americans. A lot of the people I met working at the mobile-home factory do not even want to become citizens. they send their money home and like one guy I knew as soon as he has enough American money he will move back to mexico and live on the horse ranch he is buying. Good, the sooner the better! I have no respect for a man who comes here illegally!

Color Selection

I am posting this in an attempt to make a scanned document available to a fellow washingtonlakes.com member...

First Blog

Went out for the first time with my craigslist.com electric motor. What a great investment! Put into Lacamas Lake at the old boat launch. Met up with a couple of guys who said they from the midwest and were looking for crappie. The were sort of rude...I asked for help and they ridiculed me instead. Probably did not mean to.

I caught FOUR great fish. I went to the mouth of the creek that feeds Lacamas and did not know what to do. There was no structure visible since the water was down very low. I did see two trees sticking out of the water about a foot so I had rigged my pole with a sliding float so that the float would allow about 4 1/2 to 5 feet of line under the surface. Threaded a nice fat night crawler on the hook and cast right between the trees. It was so cool after about 30 seconds the float drops I set the hook and WOW it felt like a huge fish. The fish jumped completely out of the water twice before I boated her (I say her because when I cleaned the fish she had eggs) when I did finally get her in the boat there she lay...the biggest fish I had caught as an adult. No one was with me, I did not know what to say. I was so excited I forgot to measure my fish before I cleaned them and cut off their heads, but I estimated this Brown Trout was about 11 or 12 inches long. I ended up catching two more about 8 inches long and releasing them. I caught two more Browns about 10 inches and a rainbow the same size.

When I finished there I started back and thought I would try and troll...I do not know how...did not go well. Fished along the way back and released a few small Yellow Perch.

The battery only lasted half the way back, which was OK I did not mind paddling back the other half.

All in all a VERY good day on the water.

By the way the reason I look goofy in the picture is that I am involved in a contest to catch five different freshwater fish:
Trout
Bass
Pan Fish
Carp
Catfish

We have to submit a photo of ourselves with the fish making the O-Tay sign so they can tell we did not just dig up old photos.

Sore Lip 'em All