What I Have Been Up To

Caught this 5.48 lbs. smallmouth bass out of Lake Coeur d'Alene today. I have been going out every other day and fishing for bass and pike.  I caught it on a deep diving Rapala and I hooked it deep. I prefer to release all that I catch but this one would have probably not made it.  

Getting Better, I Think.

When I got the boat I vowed to catch some lake salmon out of Lake Coeur d'Alene. I entered the third year of boat ownership with a real poor record.  I had caught two salmon, but neither were keepers.  My on the water time without a brag-able catch was really getting up there. Until this summer!

Today I caught my seventh keeper! Pretty cool!

I had just got all my rigging in the water and was going about the task of straightening up the boat when boom the rod shook and the reel started clicking. I bet I was on the water 10 minutes from dock to fish. I pulled in my catch, measured it and dropped it in the cooler.  24" of Lake Cd'A salmon on board and I had my gear back in the water in minutes.

I fished until 10 AM and then called it quits. Nice morning fishing and then I had all day to be with my lovely wife.

Lake Cd'A Salmon

My neighbor, Steve Nelson, and I went fishing on Lake Coeur d'Alene this morning and we caught four salmon.  Three of the four were legal length for keeping so we brought them home. Lake salmon have to be over 20" to be OK to keep. Our keepers were 22" - 24", and were very fun to catch.  Here are the brag shots.

Editor's Note: I went down to the boat and measured the area where we sized up the fish.  All fish were over 20", we didn't have to toss one back.  I guess it will go down as good karma.

St. Joe River Boat Ride

Spotted this eagle in a tree along the river.

 

 

Fishing with Darren

During the Big Stinky Jeep improvement project I was able to get my boat into Lake Coeur d'Alene for the summer boating season.  Darren Upchurch called and let us know that they had returned from their Moab trip and so I invited him fishing Friday.

We were out for about four hours and Darren caught a Pike and a big Bass.  When Darren's Pike hooked up I had a hit at the same time.  We had our first double on but I lost mine.  It was my fault because I played it a bit, got the net and put the motor in natural. I probably should have attended to the fish but during the other movements it got off.

It was a fun day for our first cruise of Cougar Bay; many more to come.

What's Up?

My last post had us on Linda's last spring break trip down into Utah, now we are biding our time waiting for Linda's big day.  If you were to run into her and ask her how many days she has left, she would not hesitate to tell you.  30 day of teaching left in her career.  It is starting to get real close.

What do we do when we are on the big countdown?  We wait, watch the weather, work on the yard, plan and let the realization that she only has a quick count down left before we are able to do everything we have been planning for.

I have been filling my time by working on the yard and house, and when the weather cooperates I go fishing.  Last week I took my brother fishing.  We have never gone fishing together since we were little kids with Dad.  We went out to Hayden lake and fished for Pike. 

We were dragging lures and cruising the shores.  I caught the first fish within the first half hour and then it slowed down.  We fished for several hours and didn't catch anything.  As we turned the boat for the ramp to pull the boat out, Dale caught his fish.  I was glad he caught one and it was good sized!

Kevin Reed as former student at NIC.  In fact he was a student way back in the days when we were building the new Student Union.  That was about 15 years ago.

We fished Hayden but launched at the Honeysuckle boat ramp. Our goal was to catch some Blueback, but they were evading us so we went into shore and started fishing for Crappie.  I was fishing a small jig but it was very slow.  I tossed into shore and reeled slowly back and boom!  I caught a 21 inch trout!  That was very odd. 

Nothing else happened and we came back to the dock by about noon.  It was good being out on the boat and I really enjoyed Kevin's company.

I plan on putting the boat into Coeur d'Alene Lake this week which will make fishing much easier, this will mean I will probably post more about fish.  We will keep you posted on Linda's retirement and if we have any adventures you will be the first to know.

The Shadowy St. Joe

This morning when I got up I had no clue what I wanted to do, so I thought about how nice the day was going to be and decided to do something about it.  One of the things I have always wanted to do was to take the boat and motor down Lake Coeur d'Alene and then go up the St. Joe River to St. Maries.

I filled the Jeep with some food and water, the tablet, and the two containers of gas and drove down to the boat.  By 8:30 AM I was on my way. The boat buzzed along at 28 mph on a glass smooth lake.  I whipped past Harrison and spotted the old railroad bridge that is now part of the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes.  Idling forward and under the bride I entered the St. Joe River.  The channel is well marked and before long I was back up to speed.

What a rush! The water was so smooth. The boat moved like a bird skimming the water.  I stood and let the wind chill my skin.  I had my coat on and my hoodie up hoping to dampen the wind chill.  I still got very cold.

When I reached St. Maries I pulled into a city dock, sat in the sun and ate my brunch. What a wonderful day I was having.

I loaded up, turned around and headed out.  Everything was going great!

I followed the river down slowed the engine and idled back under the bridge.  Once free of the final no wake zone I hit the gas and got back up to speed.  Suddenly I heard an alarm.  At first I thought it was my Lowrance so I turned the power off on it.  The alarm sounded again. I cut speed and dropped my rpms down and the alarm stopped.  The outboard was running well, but I could not get the rpms up above 3000 without the alarm. I checked the cooling intake and it was not clogged. I was baffled.

I chugged into Harrison and docked at the public dock.  At this point I checked the oil and it was exactly where it should be. I raised the motor and checked the cooling intakes again. No luck.

I idled back onto the lake and bumped my speed up until the alarm sounded and then backed off a bit.  I was able to travel at about 6.7 mph so that is what I did. It was slow but I was able to head home.  While I traveled I posted progress reports to Linda and Alex Harris so that folks would know how I was doing.  The morning was so fast and exciting, and the afternoon was slow and boring.  The positive side was that I was running on glass water and the sun was so warm I had to strip down to my T-shirt.

I arrived home at about 4:30 PM.  It felt good to be back and I could relax knowing that I made it.



After putting the boat away I drove home smiling all the way.  It was just another adventure that worked out and I can check "boat the shadowy St. Joe" off my bucket list.

The First Day

Just minutes before the sun rises.

This morning at 4:00 AM the alarm sounded and Linda and I rolled out of bed.  For months I have been trying to figure out just what to do on the first day of my retirement. I was watching TV one night a few months ago and a commercial came on that showed photos of sunrises taken by people on their first day of retirement, Linda and I looked at each other and said "That's it!"

Sunrise over Canfield and Coeur d'Alene.

We were at the boat at about 5:00 AM with breakfast in our packs, and smiles on our faces.  I have to admit that the past couple months have been a bit strange.  The retirement process at North Idaho College is what I would call a non-process.  For having been at that institution for over 33 years, one would think that there would be an exit interview, maybe a note from HR stating processes you needed to complete before you go, or even a meeting where someone collects your keys!  Nothing!  I went to work my last day and said good bye to a few people, had breakfast with some of my staff, went swimming with Heather and Michelle, turned on the auto reply on my emails and then went home.

Happily retired.

We motored out on to Lake Coeur d'Alene as the sky lightened in the east.  I turned off the ignition and we sat quietly watching the changes in light and color of our beautiful surroundings.  Linda has been so wonderful about all this retirement stuff.  Last night we were invited to have dinner with Darren and Marcy Upchurch after my last day of work.  I came up with the idea of taking the boat and motoring down the Spokane River to their house for the evening.  It was a full moon and I had always wanted to (1) take the boat down to their house and back, (2) drive the boat after dark in the light of the moon.  Last night we did both.

Lovely Linda supporting my first day dream.

Marcy made a wonderful Thai Chicken dish which we ate while over looking the river at sunset.  We talked and laughed about what I might expect in the next year.  I admit I am a bit excited.  At about 9:00 PM we climbed into the boat turned on the running lights and chugged up river.  I will admit it was quite dark on the water, even with the full moon shining.  The night was cool but there was very little breeze.  Everything went great, but if I were to do it again, I would get some kind of 10 bazillion lumens spotlight to light the way.

At 5:25 AM the sun poked its way over the tops of the mountains east of the city.  We took photos and drank coffee and tea as the new day dawned. As soon as the sun was up we started the engine and scooted over to just off Arrow Point where I set up my fishing rods, dropped the down riggers and started to fish.

I circled and fished, until about 9:30 AM, as Linda basked in the sun reading.  I think I am going to like this retirement thing!

Dan Covey in his new boat a fishing first.

Reading while I fish.

Countdown concluded.

6 & 6

 Went fishing with Darren today and we caught 6 Bass and 6 Pike.  We actually had two doubles today.  It was a great day on the lake.

We moor the working boats here.

The first Bass if the day.

Darren's Pike.

Our double.  Note the small fish puked up in the water.

Darren with Dean's Pike.

Big Bass

Yes, that a big girl!

The big one is 22", that's a fish!

One Afternoon

Kobi's PFD

Mom, dad and the kids.

Here was my thoughts, Kobi hates to do anything that deals with any type of transportation.  He doesn't like the truck or Jeep and he will actually hide if he thinks you are going to ask him to get into one of them. We took him on the boat once and that didn't work very well either.  A friend suggested that we attempt putting Kobi in the boat while he is swaddled in a dog life jacket.  Some dogs like the security of swaddling and will calm down and allow you to do things that normal you can not do. So this morning I put the PFD around Mr. Kobi to see if he would allow me to put him on the boat.  

I started by strapping him into the vest to let him get used to it.  He just stood in the center of the room looking pathetic. He did not move for about an hour and I just wandered around getting stuff ready.  I drug him out to the deck and took the picture below and he stood there for another half hour.

Finally I got his lead and he ran in under the table and hid.  How did that little goober know I wanted to take him anywhere.  This is the first time I have even tried to do this yet he knew exactly what was up.  After about 10 minutes I took the vest off him and put him outside and went down to the boat. 

I had a great day in the sun, and Kobi spent his day sleeping in the back yard.  We were both happy.

33" Pike, Approx. 17 lbs.

Keeping an eye on everything in the bay.

Pulled a Guy Out of the Water Today.

Did you know that this weekend was the weekend of the Gene Fink Memorial Chinook Derby on Lake Coeur d'Alene? Well to tell you the truth I didn't know myself until I stopped into Black Sheep Sporting Goods and the checkout guy asked me if I was entering the big derby?  I laughed and replied something like , "are you kidding?" grabbed my stuff and headed back to the college.  

When I got back after my lunch shopping break I stopped by to visit the Outdoor Pursuits gang and when I mentioned the tournament to Jacob he got excited and said "Let's enter!" I laughed, but he was serious.  We talked about it and decided that we could go out and fish without actually being in the tournament, that could satisfy our fishing desire without costing us the $20 entry fee.

So on Sunday at 9 am I picked Jacob up and we went to Higgen's Point and launched into our first not quite fish tournament experience.  We motored down Lake Coeur d'Alene to just past Driftwood Point and dropped our down rigger balls to about 90 feet.  I spent some time explaining the entire rigging process as Jacob watched.

The sun was out and the boat was warm, there was a bit of a wind out on the water, but it worked with us because we were going North, South on the Lake.  We were geared up with small squid lures called Mexican Flags and were trying to find the fish that were said to be about 80 to 105 feet deep in the lake. 

Keep in mind that this was my third time out fishing for Chinook and so far the biggest I had caught was 18 inches.  For a Chinook to be a keeper it has to be over 20 inches, I have yet to find one of those critters.  We worked our way down the lake until we noticed that everyone had turned around and headed North, then we did the same.  We heard that there were about 80 participants entered in the tournament, to us it looked like about 20 boats in this part of the lake.

We chugged along at 1.7 knots and checked our equipment periodically, ate some snacks and drank a lot of coffee.  Nothing hit so we talked about moving North and seeing if we could find something up there.

I made a few directional corrections and suddenly Jacob spotted something to our left towards shore.  It looked like a boat with a cover on it tied to a buoy.  It didn't make visual sense to us so we kept looking as I turned toward it.  Jacob confirmed that it was a boat that had capsized and there was someone in the water.

Jacob said, "Big man in little PFD."

I turned the boat over to Jacob and he started driving towards the accident.  I pulled up all the gear and got it stowed just in time.  Another boat, a small open 14 footer had arrived and tossed the guy a PFD, but he was to small of a boat to get the guy out of the water.  We came in and was able to grab the guy in the water and drag him out into our boat.  Keep in mind that the water temperature was about 44 degrees and air temperature was somewhere around 35.  The guy was very cold and extremely lucky.

Once we got him into the boat a third boat came up and tossed us a sleeping bag and a blanket.  Jacob helped him get his clothes off and wrapped him in the blankets.   I motored off to take him to Loff's Bay where we met the Sheriffs boat and a bunch of EMTS.  Once at the dock everyone waited as he was checked out and given the OK by the emergency medical folks.

His story said that he had a bit of water in his little boat and he was turning down wind to get in position to bail it out.  As soon as he made the turn, the waves came over his transom and within seconds he was sunk.  All he could do was get out away from the boat so it didn't hit him.  He said we thought he was in the water about 10 minutes before we plucked him out. 

As he warmed up and all the paperwork was filed I talked to the Sheriff and found that he had been a student body vice president when he attended NIC.  I remembered him well and we chatted about the college and how it had changed.  Jacob was glad to meet him too, they work close to the Sheriff  during the NIC adventure race so it is good to know the folks in the boats.

We were at the dock for maybe two hours and when the fellow was warm and ready everyone exited our boat and we went on our way.  It was nice to have been available to help in a situation that could have been very bad.  It was a good conclusion to a day with no fish, we drove home, loaded the boat and started telling our tail.

Can't Find the Big Ones

Winter Lake Fishing?

This morning I woke up and looked at the weather and called Darren.  We decided to go fishing on Lake Coeur d'Alene for the Salmon that live in the depth.  It took me about an hour and a half to get the boat ready.

Darren arrived and we drove out to Higgins Point.  We got ready to put the boat in and I noticed that the clip from the kicker gas line had popped off and drug all the way out from the house.  It was broken and didn't work.

We drove to Black Sheep and I bought a new one.  Back at Higgin's Point we backed the boat in and idled out on to the lake. Darren drove the boat and I set up the gear.  We headed up the lake.  On the way we were able to catch six fish.  None of them keep-able.  One was 18 inched and the rest were a bit smaller.

The weather got worse as we fished, but we were in the warm boat and having fun.  I said we caught six fish, but I didn't mention that we only knew two of them were actually on.  I found the others when I reeled in to check for seaweed.  Hey, they didn't shake the rod!

We made our way back to the dock and there was about four inches of snow on the ramp.  Darren went and got the truck but as he backed it up we noticed that the wheels on the trailer were frozen.  Once we broke the wheels lose, Darren backed down and we loaded the boat.  Pulling the boat out was a bit scary, it slipped a bit but Darren was able to get it out.  The roads were awful, real bad, I mean we drove about 15 mph all the way home.

As we slowly made our way back to the house we laughed about how bad the weather was. Probably the only guys out fishing today.  Did I say we caught six fish?

Limited Out

As I passed Michale D's I hoped that the wind on the lake would be manageable.  The sun was shimmering bright and there was not a bit of wind, the lake was glass!  I picked up the phone and called Darren.  "Hey, what are you doing?  Wanna go fishing?"  He answered immediately and said that he would meet me as soon as he could get in town.

I put the boat in at Higgin's point and made my way back up to Booth's Park where I was to pick up Darren. He called when he reached Silver Beach. I had my line out and was making my way to the beach and caught my first fish. I figured I would get the first one in the boat before Darren got on board because last time he out fished me. 

After Darren arrived we fished from Booth's Park over into Bennett Bay and back.  We looped around the lake and kept busy the whole afternoon either catching fish or missing fish.  We had a great time fishing in beautiful weather, we limited out with 30 Kokanee.  This will probably be the last time we will fish for these fish, they are getting the hooked jaw, growing darker, and turning a bit red.  We'll have to hit them again next season, the good thing is that I have about 40 of them to smoke in our Little Chief.