Roughfish Contest

The roughfish.com Specie Contest is going on the whole month of June. The point of the contest is to see how many different specie of fish you can catch in the month of June. The winner gets a custom made fishing rod. This is the third day and some of the members already have more than ten specie. Dr Flathead has nineteen...what a fisherman. Last years winner had over forty species caught.

Went down to The Mighty Columbia and the slough I frequent at Catapiller Island was 5 or 6 feet higher than normal. The boat ramp was almost unusable. Fished for a half hour and decided it was fruitless, went to where there is an underground entrance of the river into Vancouver Lake. There is normally pan fish close in and squawfish, suckers and catfish a ways out. It was also higher than I have seen it. fished for an hour or so and only caught a sculpin, which is concidered a minnow by contest rules and is not even qualified as a specie.

Hopefully I will be able to head out some nights this week and get some fish. My goal for the contest is ten species.

Canoeing On Round Lake

Monday, Memorial Day, I took My pal Shawn and his son, Lance out in the canoe on Round Lake to try for some pan fish. Met at about 8:00am and got out on the water. No thermometer so I do not know the water temp. It has to be a little warmer, but not quite warm enough. We paddled from the City Park to the airplane and fished the shoreline to the bridge with no luck. I was a little concerned, because I always get the first fish of the day there...not this day. We scooted under the bridge and there were the usual spots on the shore taken by trout fishermen. We paddled the shoreline clock-wise hitting all the promising spots and some not so promising with very little action. We were using jigs under floats. I was using Trout Magnets, 1/64th oz jigs with a split-tail grub and they were both using 1/8 oz jigs with tube shaped grubs with skirts. Shawn tried worms for a while , but to no end. We did catch seven fish between us. I caught two crappie and a fair sized bluegill and a bass fry about three inches long. Shawn caught a couple crappie and Lance caught a crappie in the six or seven inch range. We chucked them all back except Lance's. His dad had gone on so much about how good they taste he wanted to take it home. Shawn showed him how to clean it and they took it home to mom for cooking.

Not much action, but all in all a good day. I love to see kids catch fish.

Wintler Park

Went out to Wintler Park about 8:00 this morning and fished until 11:00.
There was a guy who had been there since about 7:30 and he had three or four fish on his stringer but he did not know what they were. Best we could figure they were squawfish. He also had a nice 10" smallmouth bass. He was catching fish with almost every cast and I caught two squaws the whole time. No suckers, dang!
We were both fishing worms on a leader with a weight above. Tossing them out and letting them drift a little.
Oh, well not a complete waste of time since I found a twenty dollar bill in the grass.

Left there and went to Caterpillar Island hoping that the water has warmed enough for the perch to be biting...not yet.
I was fishing a worm under a slip bobber and the water was higher than I have ever seen it. All I caught was three baby steel head between four and six inches.

No it is NOT!!!

I have heard people say, "A bad day fishing is better than a good day working."
That is just not true. I had a bad day fishing today and would have rather been at work.
I went out to Lacamas Lake and fished on the northeast side where there are turn outs on the road. I tried everything in the box. At one point I lost three rigs in four casts and left. I went down to where the store is and watched a fellow with his brother and his two little boys fish. I am guessing at the relationships, but it is not important. One of the boys caught a fair sized rainbow and the other had one nearly in to shore when it come off. They were having so much fun I could see that he really enjoyed having his boys out there. He was not even fishing himself, just making sure that the boys were OK. It made me sad and I felt a little pathetic there by myself fishing and catching nothing...not even a bite. I could not stay. It made me feel like crap. I will turn fifty-two years old tomorrow.

Bow Killers

Two of the boys, Zach and Brock, who usually attend the Middle-School activities were not there last night for the regular Sunday night devotional. The kids usually meet at the church building and then I take them in the van to devotional, but last night we had our meeting at the church building and afterwards these two show up with Brock's mom. She was dropping off Zach so he could connect with his sister there at the building to get home because it was closer/more convenient. When I asked where they had been I was told they went bow-fishing out at Vancouver Lake.

Brock had killed a hundred carp and Zach had killed about 80 and they did not know how many Brock's dad had killed. They do this every spring when the carp move up into the shallows. They do not "use" the fish for anything. They do not eat them or even use them as fertilizer or dog food. They just kill them and let them sink, deflated to the bottom of the lake. They just kill to be killing.

I understand that people think the carp has no place in the lake. They are an exotic, invasive specie. I just think that killing just to kill and not using what you kill is, well, just not right.

Skunked...

Well I kind of shot myself in the foot Saturday. I got up real early to go fishing and then dinked around and dinked around and decided to go shoot my blackpowder rifle instead up at the english pit shooting range, which is suppose to be under new ownership, but i talked myself out of that too.

Finally went out to the lake about six in the evening. Went to the dock and noone was catching anything, but I hung out and fished until about eight and got nothing, no bites, no fish. I was tssing a kastmaster for a bit then switched to a worm under a slip bobber. It was almost like a set myself up for failure.

This coming week-end is my birthday and Mother's day, so I will be lucky to get out maybe on Saturday. I was thinking I should try and get some time on the water sometime this week after work.

First Fish 2008 Season

I had a great time Saturday. My wife and the two of our children who still live at home went to visit my daughter and grandson in Tacoma and my buddy Shawn asked if I wanted to go to the lake and go fishing in his boat. I was really excited. I have never been out on a fishing boat in a lake. I went out in the salt a few years back with my brother Bob, but that is another thing altogether.

By the time I got out to Lacamas Lake he already had the boat in the water. The lake was a little low and he asked me, "Where to?" I do not know, but I had read a few reports on www.washingtonlakes.com and they were catching them at the other end of the lake, where the creek enters the lake. We had a little bit of trouble with the water being so low we almost run aground. There were some other boats and we were trying to follow their path to get through. One lady told us there was an island that would "sneak up on your a**" we watched for that!

When we got to the other end of the lake there were so boaters trolling...we did not want to troll. They were not catching anything anyway. There was one boat catching them on worms so we tried that, well I tried that. Shawn wanted to use a spinner, so he tied on a spinner with rainbow colors and he caught the first fish about a 12-13" rainbow. I did not have the color of lure he did so I tied on a small gold color kastmaster. I caught a rainbow that was 13 ounces and 14" long. I used my new digital scale...a fun toy! We both caught one more in the three hours or so we were out. I had two get away one right at the boat due to a lack of net and one that jumped clean out of the water ten feet from the boat and spit the hook. The one I brought home for my delicious dinner was about 11 ounces and 11" long.

I have been growing my beard since I bought my new license on April first and told everyone I would not shave until I caught my first fish of the season. It has been very cold this spring and I was out of commission for two weeks because of cancer surgery, but I am bald faced now (not in the picture, because I had to go home and shave).