desperate ice fishing day

This from a couple of weeks back, mid-March or so. 

I've never been any kind of ice fishing enthusiast. This year the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers hosted a guided trip on this high lake, with the agenda of getting more people interested in the self-sustaining brown trout population. Since Covid the spawning browns in the feeder streams have been hit hard, with a number of 20-27" trophies taken out of the breeding stock. We're trying to get new regulations to protect these fish.

The guide said usually the ice is getting thinner by late March, this year it's still getting thicker. Fortunately it's still just under 3 feet so our augers can reach the water. Up on the Grand Mesa there's 5 feet of ice on the lakes..

I wandered around the encampment asking questions as is my wont. Paul kindly invited me to fish with them. Three of us are then lined up sitting on buckets, staring at holes in the ice. Patricia pipes up, "I keep thinking of Grumpy Old Men".  Not sure how Paul and I felt about that..

There wasn't much happening in the encampment, a few small trout. Paul has a nice simple Humminbird ice fishing sonar, could see the jig falling on its circular LED display. The guides had high-fancy sonars which they said work about 50% of the time, took him a year to learn. Both of these sonars agreed there might be fish down there though our sampling did not support that.

We walked 10min toward shore for another spot. There were holes pre-drilled there and some blood in the snow which we took for a hopeful sign. Action was faster here though still just the smaller stocked cuttbows. Apparently CPW stocks the lake through the ice - drives the truck out, uses a giant truck-mounted auger to drill a hole, and dumps the unfortunate trouts into the icy wastes. I'm startled the fish survive. There's a decent population of mysis shrimp here which I guess is what they are eating.

51 years of fishing to get my first fish through the ice..

We were hoping for an Artic char, Colorado state record 4.7lb caught in this lake, or some kokanee salmon, or one of those legendary browns. None of that happened. The odd thing about ice fishing is you can't really think about it - there's no hatch to match, no fly presentation to think about, no difficult casts to holding spots - just drowning some mealworms on jig hooks, or hopefully jigging small spoons for the predators. Even the tackle is boring, short little bits of graphite rods and cheap spinning reels. Still with 3 feet of ice, it's the only game in town..

I used inappropriate tackle, a refurbished Abu Ambassadeur 4600C on an ultralight fiberglass stream rod which is really too long for ice fishing. 

There's a fox making a living off what the ice fishermen leave behind. He came trotting across the ice to check if we'd left him a nice pile of fish guts. Sadly no.

He wandered off to think about things. 

The fox and I, contemplating on the ice..

He did leave a tuft of fur behind which I salvaged to tie flies with. 

Also an earworm from an 80s glam-rock band, 

Albuquerque

Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque ! 

Last weekend I went there on a whim to look at a canoe. Denver to Abq may be the easiest drive in the West, still it's six hours of freeway each way. Upon getting onto I-25 in Denver Miz Google said in her dulcet tones, "stay on I-25 for 439 miles". Luckily I always travel with a copy of From Langley Park to Memphis in some form and had the right soundtrack. 

I remembered that the first time in Abq we'd driven across from NC on I-40 for several days. The elderly Ford Econoline that was to be our home for the next year had started buzzing in the gearbox. We'd saved $15 000 for a year of not working. Rolling into Abq with visions of that becoming $12 000 and a couple months less after a new transmission, was a little sad. I went to AAA, this was before cell phones or internet, to ask about a reliable transmission shop. They had one look at the Econoline and our fresh faces then sent us across to the cheap side of town. The nice young man made us coffee and said he'd have a look. We sat and researched campsites from the papers in our New Mexico folder. He came out after an hour or so and said, that was really weird. Someone put automatic transmission fluid into the manual gearbox. It's astonishing it had not blown up crossing the Appalachians. After a change to the appropriate 80w-90 gear oil the buzzing quieted and everything worked - for another 100 000 miles as it happened. So I have fond memories of Abq. 

I-40 was the road to everywhere from the tobacco fields of central NC, to the mountains and the sea. In Denver it's 25 or 70. Crossing 40 on the 25 in Abq was a kind of sentimental journey.  Off to the hotel, picked at random from the cheaper options online. It is right next to the Marriot, how bad could it be ?  Turns out this is where they send the homeless with vouchers for short term stays. The check-in required a $200 deposit and signing a form that said I understood I wasn't getting a lease. Outside the oilfield roughnecks sat in their giant trucks generating clouds of weed smoke. Hm. Helen knew about this chain as she'd sent people to the one in Denver as part of church work. That's the last time I book a hotel without consulting my wife. Whole Foods provided a evening snack, bottle of nice Pinot Grigio and some excellent cheese and crackers, turn down the lights and pretend everything is fine. 

In the morning a quick trail run to clear the head and get the legs working again after being a truck-driving blob for six hours yesterday. The Embudito trailhead was easy to find, the trail not so much.

Lost the trail at some point in a creek bed, ended up crawling up the side of the canyon through the cactus to a recognizable trail. Emerged bleeding slightly, to the alarm of the old folks hiking on the trail. Nearly made it up to snowline, after the bushwhacking there wasn't enough time to climb all the way. Another day perhaps of the few left. 

The previous owner of the canoe is a nice old retired guy whose shoulders are blown out so he can't paddle. They had recently fled Florida just ahead of the new Americans flooding in to join DeSantis and Trump in their dream of a white police state. Oddly that's just what we'd fled from in South Africa all those years ago. His dream was to take it up to the Minnesota Boundary Waters. My retirement fantasy is to do just that, I promised to send him a trip report should we live so long. 

Canoe strapped down for the 40mph winds ahead and back home again. Ain't she a beauty ? 

Stopped briefly in Lathrop State Park, to get out of the car, finish the cheese and wine, and try the boat out. It handles beautifully in a howling gale. 

Upon leaving I'd observed it was a bit unreal for me to be doing this, a most uncharacteristic riding off madly in all directions. Helen said on the contrary, that is exactly what I'm like. All these years of marriage and I still don't know what my wife thinks of me: or perhaps still don't know myself.