Glenn and I spent several hours in the sunny outdoors yesterday, starting with a short trip to Pebble Creek for morning skiing. My knee has not completely recovered from the flip-flop-face plant last week, so I spent all of my time on the Aspen run with the kiddies. I'm beginning to think my knee did a slight hyperextension with a twist (sounds like coverage of figure skating, doesn't it?) when I fell; I'm still feeling little twinges now and again and especially when I put my weight on it during skiing. We stayed about an hour and a half; Glenn of course made his runs from the top of the mountain. The ski season is winding down here; the resort will close Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday beginning this week.
After lunch, we decided to head to the Chesterfield Reservoir, about a 45-50 minute drive from our house. Basically, it's on the other side of the mountains we see from our back deck. This water is not designated family friendly which means limits are more stringent. At Chesterfield, each angler is allowed only two fish per day. And, since this water is larger and deeper, the fish are generally heftier than at Devil Creek where we also often fish.
The fishing calendar prophesized that yesterday would be a poor day just inching into the fair category, with best times about 4:30 pm to dusk. We arrived there, after a quick pitstop at the Jurgen househould, around 2:45 pm, plunked down our buckets and dropped some large meal worms into the water. It was slow-going, indeed, but we did see action. Glenn caught the first rainbow, which at Devil Creek we'd say was a really nice fish. Little did we know.
By the time we drove away from Chesterfield, we'd added our daily limit of three more fish to the bucket. First, Glenn hauled in another rainbow, 16.5 inches long weighing (we weighed 'em on my kitchen scale when we got back) 2 pounds, 3 ounces.
I lost a really big guy when he broke my line shortly thereafter. A new jig and a new mealy, I was back in business. Imagine my surprise when I pulled a 19 inch, 2 pound, 10 ounce rainbow through the hole! WOW! I couldn't believe it. For years, I shied away from ice fishing on Saginaw Bay -- the thought of spending hours in the cold merely to bring back an occasional 8-inch perch, well, it wasn't that thrilling to me. This fish really got our attention.
Determined to round-out our limit, we sat longer, jigging and wiggling our mealies. Glenn swore a small blue streak when he managed to pull up another nice rainbow, only to lose it when his hook got hung up on the ice lip of his hole. We both were bumming that he'd lost it. . .
. . . but a few moments later, we were glad he did. A fish hit my mealy and took off. My little ice fishing pole looked like one of those Chinese acrobats it was bent so tightly. I kept reeling, Glenn grabbed his gaffing hook -- and so glad he did. Together, we pulled a 21-inch, 3 pound rainbow through the ice!
All told, we brought home four fish and after Glenn filleted them, we have three pounds of fillets waiting to be our dinner. Wow!!
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