08-17-2005, 03:57 PM
This may seem like an odd combination, but in a matter of a week I was fishing from near 12,000 ft in the windriver moutains of Wyoming to literal sea level 100 miles off the coast of San Diego.
I have never gone on a fishing trip without some sort of adventure and this was no exception. I started out by leaving Rexburg around 8 P.M. my wife warned me that it was too late and I would "hit a deer." I replied that "I had never hit a deer and she shouldn't get on me about hitting deer unless it had actually happened. Well an hour and a half later I ate my words when a very large doe jumped in front of my car and smashed in the whole front end. Needless to say I did not make it to the trail that night and got a late start the next morning. I ended up hiking in 14 miles to cooks lakes. The fishing was excellent. I caught about as many 10-12" brookies as I wanted to all on dry flies. From Cooks lakes my cousin and I hiked into Wall Lake for an overnighter. We were disappointed that we could not find a single fish. I have always heard that Wall Lake held huge Goldens but I am now fairly sure that it is a dead lake. So we went back down to Cooks and caught more Brookies. I stayed a total of four days before I had to get back home to pack for SanDiego.
My wife and I flew into LA and then drove to San Diego where we met our boat the Cat Special. We boarded at 8:00 at night, and headout to sea. I have never been on an overnight boat before so it was fun and we were with a large group of friends which made it even funner. We found the Tuna early the next morning nearly 100 miles off the West Coast. My wife was one of the first ones to hook up, unfortunately she was not used to the level wind reels so she tried to slow the fish down with her thumb. When her thumb heated up she let go and the line spun out of control in a huge backlash. This of course resulted in an an instant snap of the line. A little while later we got into a large school of albacore. It seemed like everyone on the boat ( about 20 of us) hooked up at once. There were fishing going everywhere. Some of them were landed others snapped off as they went under the boat of they tangled in others lines. The boat got around 22 tuna out of that school and we picked up a couple more as the day went on but we never got into another really active school for the rest of the day. My wife landed a really nice albacore and I was one of the unlucky 4 on the boat who did not land at least one. O'well next time. It was really a great experience that I would do again anytime. We saw flying fish, hundreds of dolphins, 3 whales, a turtle being eaten by a shark and many other really cool things that go beyond just a fishing trip. Well hopefully I will get back into the local water soon. Good Luck to you all.
Windriver
[signature]
I have never gone on a fishing trip without some sort of adventure and this was no exception. I started out by leaving Rexburg around 8 P.M. my wife warned me that it was too late and I would "hit a deer." I replied that "I had never hit a deer and she shouldn't get on me about hitting deer unless it had actually happened. Well an hour and a half later I ate my words when a very large doe jumped in front of my car and smashed in the whole front end. Needless to say I did not make it to the trail that night and got a late start the next morning. I ended up hiking in 14 miles to cooks lakes. The fishing was excellent. I caught about as many 10-12" brookies as I wanted to all on dry flies. From Cooks lakes my cousin and I hiked into Wall Lake for an overnighter. We were disappointed that we could not find a single fish. I have always heard that Wall Lake held huge Goldens but I am now fairly sure that it is a dead lake. So we went back down to Cooks and caught more Brookies. I stayed a total of four days before I had to get back home to pack for SanDiego.
My wife and I flew into LA and then drove to San Diego where we met our boat the Cat Special. We boarded at 8:00 at night, and headout to sea. I have never been on an overnight boat before so it was fun and we were with a large group of friends which made it even funner. We found the Tuna early the next morning nearly 100 miles off the West Coast. My wife was one of the first ones to hook up, unfortunately she was not used to the level wind reels so she tried to slow the fish down with her thumb. When her thumb heated up she let go and the line spun out of control in a huge backlash. This of course resulted in an an instant snap of the line. A little while later we got into a large school of albacore. It seemed like everyone on the boat ( about 20 of us) hooked up at once. There were fishing going everywhere. Some of them were landed others snapped off as they went under the boat of they tangled in others lines. The boat got around 22 tuna out of that school and we picked up a couple more as the day went on but we never got into another really active school for the rest of the day. My wife landed a really nice albacore and I was one of the unlucky 4 on the boat who did not land at least one. O'well next time. It was really a great experience that I would do again anytime. We saw flying fish, hundreds of dolphins, 3 whales, a turtle being eaten by a shark and many other really cool things that go beyond just a fishing trip. Well hopefully I will get back into the local water soon. Good Luck to you all.
Windriver
[signature]