Neither Rain, Nor Sleet or Snow!!

September 3^rd, 2016

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet or Snow!!

After cutting down a tire yesterday heading up the North Fork Road that ruined my day of fishing I needed to get out. I had dropped off my car late Friday and thought it might be done Saturday morning.  Getting up this morning I checked the weather report hoping something changed overnight.  After all, the only job you can be wrong at every day and still have a job is the weatherman! It was supposed to be a crappy overcast day and the weatherman got it right, unfortunately. As we headed to Coffee Traders for a cup of coffee and I called the tire place hoping my car would be ready soon.  Unfortunately, they said my car would not be done until midday.  So the decision was made to take a short family hike into a lake somewhere. So I decided to ‘visit an old friend’…Link Lake. I have blogged about this lake before and probably will again.  Since we needed to be back by 5pm to pick up my car, the tire place is closed Labor Day, we hurried home, packed up quickly and headed out.  For most of the drive up to Link Lake it was raining. I thought to myself, ‘great, another ruined day’.  Fortunately, when we pulled into the trail head it stopped raining. Things were looking up! We grabbed our packs and up the trail we started. Even with overcast skies, Link is a pretty lake to hike too.

People always say ‘the fish don’t know it is raining’. Well, I do!! And I don’t like to fish in the rain.  And today was a cold rain. Plus, Link Lake is pretty high up, which means it will be even colder up there with a lot of wind.  We got to the lake and you could see the dark clouds coming in quickly.  So I quickly rigged up and started casting! My first cast was a fish on. What a start.  Then the sleet started falling and it kept getting harder and harder.  Ben and I had gone ahead of Taylor and Leanne so we decided to head back to the corner of the lake where there were several bigger trees for shelter from the sleet.  I quickly found a tree to wait out the sleet and Ben found one up the trail a bit further. Fortunately, it was sleet not rain because while it was cold, the sleet mostly bounces off of you and you are not going to get soaking wet.  Finally, the sleet stopped and I headed back to the shoreline and started casting again. Another couple casts and another fish on. The family finally came out to where I was and they were all freezing cold and they decided to head back to the parking lot.  Of course, I decided to stay and fish a bit longer.  Call me crazy, but I needed it!

I figured I could easily get another 30 minutes in and at this lake I had a good chance of catching another nice fish.  Sure enough, after a couple smaller fish, I finally hooked a decent fish. Problem was, my hands by now were frozen from handling the other fish and the wind and rain.  I couldn’t get to my camera on the phone to turn on! Stupid smart phone!  I finally got the camera up and decided one pick and let the poor fish go! While the pick is not great, the fish lived and you can see it is a nice beautiful fish!

It was time for me to head back to make sure I made it back to Whitefish to be able to pick up my car by 5pm.  It was a good day, even with the rain and sleet! And today, I didn’t mind at all.  Ironically, just as I started to head back down the skies cleared.  Well, I guess I got the best of the day because I caught a few fish!  Even so, a beautiful view on the way out.