Fishing

At the end of the summer, a friend joined me in the boat for an afternoon of fishing in Klaus Lake at The Snoqualmie Tree Farm. We both have recreational passes, and enjoy exploring, fishing, and hunting together in the woods here. Since it was late summer, the lake was down a bit, but a boat still fit in at the launch spot, and with a little punting, we floated out into this beautiful water. Earlier this Spring I had fished this lake with my mentor Wes. We caught a few small perch and had planned to come back a few months later in hopes that the little fish had grown into bigger fish. Well, they did.

I usually use a hand constructed lure of red salmon eggs (plastic beads), a Colorado spinner, and simple barbed hook. Then I bait the whole thing with a worm- red wigglers are best, but when the groud is too hot, I buy night-crawlers, which never catch the same amount of fish. NOTE- never put your bought worms into the ground when you are done, they are not native and to a lot of damage to forests over time. That’s another reason I prefer to dig worms out of my compost, though most of them are non-native. Baiting the hook, I plopped my line down into the deeper part of the lake as we trolled across to the far side to look for perch. For the ride across the lake, there are no bites. My fishing companion and I are a little worried we may have the wrong tackle. Should we put on a fly? No, the fish are not kissing the surface. It’s mid-day, not the best time to fish, because they like cooler weather at dawn and dusk in the summer. That’s when the bugs come out too. So we keep the worms and continue our hunt.

The far side of the lake holds a few floating logs and some aquatic grasses that offer good habitat for fish. When we reach the spot where I caught the perch earlier in the Spring, I cut the engine and point to an area for my fellow fisher to cast, and I cast the opposite side so we have less chance of tangling our lines. It’s important when you are with another person in a boat to plan where each of you will be casting so as not to hook one another or get lines crossed. My buddy casts out near one of the floating logs and cries “fish on!”. Her poll bends at the tip as she hurriedly reels. I quietly pull in my line and reach for the net to help bring in her catch. The thrashing fish comes up to the boat and I reach down under the fighting fins to haul it in. A new is crucial in boat fishing, because many of the fish are large enough to break off the line if you pull them out of the water. The net holds the weight of the fish and preserves your tackle for more fishing. The fighting fish is indeed a nice sized perch, so I offer the net to my friend, she carefully gripped the fish and pulled out the hook, then we plop the prize into an ice chest to preserve our food. In hot weather, it’s good to keep caught fish you plan to eat on ice so they don’t spoil.

Along with ice, I bring two poles, I have a two pole endorsement, so my fishing license allows me to fish with two poles. I like that when I am out in the boat alone, because I can actively fish with one pole, while leaving a bobber on the other. When I am trolling across the lake, I can have two poles in the water on each side of the boat for the troll. When I fish with friends, I tend to use only one pole to prevent any confusion if someone has a fish on. We both continue to work the area with our worms, and the perch are hungry! However, after my friend’s initial larger fish catch, the rest of what we reel in are too small for our dinner table, so we throw them back and move out of what I start calling “the nursery”. Often, smaller fish will congregate along the shore in the reeds and tall grass for protection. Our sights were set on bigger fish, so we pull out our lines and move on to another part of the lake. We troll a bit to find what my mentor calls a “honey hole”. Sure enough, in a few minutes we start getting bites again. I cut the electric motor and we fish the new spot, near another floating log, and a big boulder submerged just under the surface. Between these two imposing snags- things out hooks could get caught in, we carefully hunt the waters for larger prey, and indeed, the big fish are biting. In less than an hour we’ve caught four fish of nice size. We’ve found a honey hole, a place where the adult fish are schooling.

Shouts of delight echo across the water as we haul in nice sized perch. The worms are working, and our honey hole gives up a few great feasts, but all good things come to an end, and so, the school moves on, and we begin to get less and less hits, so we start our troll again across the calm waters. Sometimes it’s nice to take in the views while fishing, and this lake has some vistas to appreciate. To our south, Mt. Si looms above the treetops. It’s a famous hiking peak in the area, and the first real mountain you come to heading east on Interstate 90 out of Seattle. I’ve hiked it once, and it is a formidable climb. Today I enjoy viewing it form my boat in the lake, savoring the relaxed afternoon on the water, rather than climbing switchbacks to the top of a peak. So much gratitude for time on the water fishing with friends. Hiking too, but today we’re out harvesting wild food.

An overcast day can be to your advantage when fishing. We were enjoying this cloud cover, and the dull light encouraged the fish too. While trolling around, we caught the rest of our limit in perch. My fishing friend had never done this, and we celebrated her first limit catch. Catch limits are important, they keep the stocks of fish healthy for others to come and enjoy fishing too. Biologists spend a lot of time studying fish in these lakes, and have an understanding of populations, habitat, and the dynamic relationship of fishing and mother nature. Many of the local lakes are stocked with trout each year to help keep fish available to the public, but our responsibility as ethical fish catchers is just as important to keeping our wild food source available for all. If we over-fish the lakes, there will not be food to catch there in future. Following the state fishing regulations ensures we can all enjoy fishing for generations to come.

With our limit in perch caught, we talk about trying for the trout or bass that are also swimming in this lake, but we have 10 fish already, and that’s a lot to take home and clean tonight. We agree that we’ve caught enough for today, and turn our boat back to shore for the take out. It was a full afternoon of fishing, and we were glad to be heading home with our catch after a lovely calm day on the water. The perch had been good to us, allowing each of our larders to receive some fillets for frying or baking. Cleaning perch is a little more effort than trout, because you don’t eat the skin of scales. I took my fish home and filleted them, the froze the meat for later in the winter, when I would be craving fish but unable to go out and cast for them. Well, the lakes are open year round at the tree farm, but a cold boat in the rain is not so much fun. I try to keep my fishing to the warmer months out of a love of comfort, but I have been known to head out on a sunny day in February to catch a late season trout. To many more days in the boat on the water reeling in a fine fish.