Labor Day at Gifford

Threw caution to the wind this Labor Day weekend, and went up to Gifford Campground with the Anderson clan to do some Walleye fishing and eat a lot of food. Boy, did we do both!

Linda and I met Mike, Rayelle, and Julia at the store in Post Falls and we picked up some final items and were off. Our little caravan drove through west Spokane and headed up through Loon Lake to the Addy/Gifford cut-off road where we climbed up and then dropped into Gifford Campground. The rest of the group was there waiting and we grabbed our spot and got set up.

The weather was calling for rain off and on the entire weekend, but we lucked out and had beautiful days of partly cloudy skies. Most of the time it was warm and even hot!

Mike and Earl ready the boat for Walleye fishing.

We met everyone in the group: Earl and Lorane Anderson, Skip Allert, Mike and Julie Boyle, Mary and James, Kyle and Tessa, as well as Mike, Rayelle, and Julia

The group with dogs.

This was my second time fishing for Walleye and both times were with Mike and/or the Andersons. We fished Saturday morning with Earl and Mike and then in the afternoon with Mike, Rayelle, Julia and their dog, Annie.

Lindy Rig, but Earl used worms and a hook.

On Sunday, all the Anderson clan left. Visitors were coming into town, school was starting, and things needed to be done at home before Tuesday. We stayed and I fished with Mike and Skip. During these trips, we caught some fish, but everyone said it was a bit slow. They all usually fish at a different part of Lake Roosevelt. They kept saying "At North Gorge..." and then went on to tell me about how they fish up there. "At North Gorge, the bottom is rocky, so you don't know if you are hooked on a rock or a fish!" "At North Gorge, we know where all the holds for fish are; here we are just guessing." I guess I will have to go up to North Gorge and see for myself.

We fished with jigs and bottom walkers while we were up there. Bottom walkers were new to me so I enjoyed learning a new technique.  Earl used a system he called "the Lindy rig". From what I gathered, he is so faithful to it that he fishes it come hell or high water. It was fun fishing with these guys because they were so knowledgeable in their usual ways of fishing. I got a lot of great tips and heard some great stories. Remember, "If you are fishing as slow as you can go, then you are going too fast!" according to Earl.

Home Again

One of the old adages Linda and I have always held to is the one about visitors being like fish and the longer they stay the stinker they get. Something like that.

Smile!

We had a wonderful time with Jill and Barry, but we always like to keep our visits short so that we don't become stinky fish.

We packed up and left on Monday and took two nights to get back to Cd'A.  Our first night's campground was located at Kentucky-Alleyne Provincial Park. It was a nice spot with a couple little lakes that we could walk around.

The last night we camped at Gifford State Park on Lake Rosevelt. We swam in the lake and after drying off, ate dinner as a thunderstorm blew into the area. Great lightning but Kobi was not impressed.

Jill and Barry's Loon and baby.

Had a wonderful dinner at Joe's place.  

Sunset on the last night at Lac La Hache.

Two pups playing.

Storm moving in over Lake Rosevelt.

The Sun is Still Shining!

It’s Monday morning and Linda said to me, “I think this will be our last trip in the camper this year.” I looked at her and shook my head. It’s only October and we have until the end of November to get out and enjoy camping.  This is our annual Steamboat Rock State Park camping trip and I will guarantee that we will get out camping again before we head to Mexico.

Steamboat Rock has been our favorite fall, end of the season, camping adventure.  We usually make the trip over here around Halloween, but this year we have scheduled a bit of surgery for our dog, Kobi around that time.  Kobi has a lump on his back near his butt and we feel we need to give our vet another $500.  Oh, I guess we need to take care of the little mutt, but he is starting to run up quite the tab. He’ll have to do a lot of face licking and acting cute to pay for this.

We drove over to the park on Monday. The weather was misty and foggy all the way over. We entered the area.  Linda and I thought we knew the routine so we picked a spot and as I set up, Linda went over to the usual area to pay. She was back in a short time carrying the check and registration card. We no longer paid there, we had to walk up to the park entry and pay via our credit card. So we walked over and Linda called using the “Yellow” phone. After several minutes and quite a bit of conversation, she hung up and said, “Let’s go, we can’t check in until 2:30 PM.”  We were a bit confused and frustrated. It was now 1:30 PM and we had to walk back to our rig, about a 1/2 mile away, and then come back and call again at 2:30 PM.

Off we walked.  After a few minutes, the park ranger drove up.  We talked for a bit and asked about the process suggesting that they put a note up as you drove in stating that you couldn’t register until 2:30 PM.  He laughed and told us that all we have to do was drop our check into the box at the park entry pay station. He also said that all spots were first come, first serve.  We smiled and reiterated that it was very confusing and he agreed. Off he drove and Linda walked back and dropped our registration check into the box.

The mist had gone and the fog had burned off leaving us to lounge around in the warm sun.  We read and played with Kobi as deer and turkeys sauntered through our campsite.

Tuesday morning Linda and Kobi went for a walk. After their adventure, Linda was soaking up the morning sun and Kobi got stung on the paw by a couple yellow jackets.  It was tragic! At least to Kobi and Linda it was. Kobi was shaking his paw and licking it so we confined him to his leash and Linda and I went for a long hike around the area.  One of my goals was to climb up to the top of Steamboat Rock while we were here.  We have done it many times, but this time it would be with new knees and I wanted to see if they have healed enough to make it to the top.  Today’s climb was postponed due to me having to use the restroom and there is no pot on the top. I’ll make it up tomorrow!

We hiked on and went down to the east end of the park.  The water in Banks Lake is very low, the lowest level of all our visits.  The shores made for great walking and sightseeing so we followed them around to the east face of Steamboat Rock. There were two red tail hawks floating on the air currents above us and just off the huge rock faces.  Suddenly we heard a commotion and looked up to spot one of the hawks attacking a nesting pair of birds.  It was so high up on the cliff face that we couldn’t identify the birds that were attacked, but we could see the hawk as it sat at the nest after the attack.  I took a picture with my camera's telephoto, but just as I got ready for my second shot the battery went dead. So much for my National Geographic Moment!

Back at the camper Kobi was still favoring his paw, but it looked like things would be OK by morning. We sat in the sun, looked at maps and planned our future trips. We took a walk to the west campground area. On the lawn in the middle of everything were 30 turkeys and 22 deer, none of which were afraid of us. Once the sun, set we went inside, fixed dinner and played cribbage. The series is now tied at two apiece. We decided that we can’t go home in the morning because we are now in a best of five series.

We packed up the camper and headed out to Electric Avenue; I mean Electric City and turned North.

We decided to take a different route home, one that we had never driven and one that could lead us to another night's camping.  After driving through Grand Coulee and Coulee City we followed Highway 153 to split on to #13 Cache Creek Road where we drove easterly. This took us over a pass to Highway 21 and ended at Republic WA. We followed Highway 20 southeast and went over Sherman Pass ending on Highway 25 at Kettle Falls. We followed Lake Roosevelt’s eastern shore until we found Gifford Campground.

Gifford was right on the lake and we were one of four rigs using its campsites. There must have been 80 sites available so all of the RVs were spread out and individual camps were very private. Our site looked west over the lake. It was very pretty. About a quarter mile down lake was a free ferry that operated during the day.  It crossed over the lake about every half hour and seemed to always be loaded with vehicles.

We left Gifford and drove the scenic highway south. At Davenport, we turned east and drove through Spokane and on to home.

Walleye

On Saturday Mike Anderson picked me up and we drove over to Reardan, Washington where we met up with Mike’s sister, Mary. We were pulling Earl’s fishing boat and headed for the launch at Ft. Spokane State Park. We had heard that the walleye were biting and since the weather was real mild for this time of year we thought we would give fishing a shot.

The week before we went Mike had called and told me we were taking on the stealthy walleye, and since I had never fished for them before I started doing research. Two days into my investigation I realized that everyone who fishes for these elusive fish fishes them differently. They use slip sinker rigs, crank bates, jigs tipped with a crawler, leech or minnow, or all sorts of variations on those themes. Basically it is like fishing for any fish, you first have to pay to play.

During my information gathering, Mike called and said that Mary suggested that I look at jigs, but more specifically, tiger fire jigs. Tiger fire turns out to be a color or combination of colors. I looked all over two stores for Tiger Fire jigs. I thought they were a brand of jigs! Once I narrowed it down to a color combination I was looking for, then I proceeded to go directly to the jigs area and stand there looking puzzled. I even put out a call to my Facebook friends who fish for a report. The reply was vague, but they said you have to use pink jigs.

I was definitely clueless about all this fishing stuff and it must have showed. As I stood there with a handful of tiger fire colored jigs, and a second fist full of pink jigs, a guy walked up and looked at me. “You know you can put those jigs in a plastic bag right there and then you won’t have them sticking your hands.” I was a bit embarrassed, but that was my opening. “Oh yeah” I said “do you know much about walleye fishing?” He proceeded to tell me that he had been up in the same area where we were going and had caught a bunch. He said that I need to buy some black jigs because that is what he caught all his fish with. I grabbed a bag full of black jigs. Then just as he was leaving he pointed to a rack nearby and said “Don’t forget to get some stingers!” and he was off. I stood there with my bag of tiger fire jigs and my bag of black jigs looking at the nearby rack wondering “what the heck is a stinger?”

Once again my expression must have shouted “confused!” because another guy came by (I think he was a sales man) and said “What are you lookin’ for?” All I could say was “stingers” and he proceeded to point at these little packages of treble hooks with a short piece of monofilament on them. I grabbed a couple packs and was off to the front of the store. $40.00 later I had my three colors of jigs, stingers and my one day license for Washington fishing. All this gear and I still don’t know anything about fishing for walleye!

At Ft. Spokane we launched the boat and went up river. Mary was the master walleye fisherman guide and had a tem pounder in the freezer to prove it. She and her husband, James, had been walleye fishing for years and they had their favorite spots all over this river system. We arrived at a location where a friend of Mary’s was already fishing. While rigging our lines with jigs and worms, I set up the bet for the day. First caught, most caught and biggest caught, the usual fishing wager of beers. We all agreed and the lines went into the water. I knew the bet was a poor one, neither Mike nor I had ever fished walleye and Mary sounded like she fishes them every day! In fact I became real spooked when she told a story of fishing on Valentines Day, in the cold, till her fingers were numb! Wow, I think I was lucky to get to walk the dog outside after taking Linda to dinner on Valentine’s Day. Imagine getting to go fishing, I was in awe.

We fished by putting a worm on the jig hook with a stinger tagged on behind it so that if the fish short striked the worm we had more chance of catching it. The one guy I talked to said that about 80% of the fish he caught were caught on the stinger. That’s why I had to have them. Once we were rigged we dropped the jig down into about 30 feet of water until it was on bottom and then we would jig the worm up and down until a fish came up and ate our bait. We jigged and Mike worked the electric motor on the front of the boat. It wasn’t long until I felt something and set the hook. First fish was mine!

We fished for a while longer and caught a few. Mary and I were tied with the number we caught; Mike worked the electric motor on the front of the boat. We moved to three locations during the day catching a couple fish at each. We ended up on the main part of the river; they call it Roosevelt Lake, but at the same time call it a river. That got a bit confusing.

At this point Mary and I were tied for most fish caught. Mary had the biggest, I had the first fish and Mike was running the electric motor in the front of the boat. We were about to call it a day and thus a tie on the most fish bet, when Mary took out her cell phone and said, “I would like to phone a friend!” I had watched the show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, but I didn’t know that it was a possibility here on the river. Next thing you know I was behind by two fish and Mary had won the final bet. I was amazed and humbled at the same time. I learned that if you fish with the locals you have to also know the local rules. We returned to the dock, loaded the boat and drove back to Reardan where we cleaned our catch and divided up the filets. I still owe for the losses on the bets, but I am sure I’ll be able to pay in the future. The day was sunny and beautiful, we caught fish, and I learned the art of winning at the same time.