BY BOB ‘HALFHOG’ VAREY
First off let me tell you that I’m no writer. At times I have trouble walking and talking or speaking the Queen’s English, let alone writing out my thoughts. Wayne Phillips could contest to this, and I’m sure there’ll be red check marks all over this page. Ha! Ha!
Anyway, this is a little story of a late October/05 fishing trip with Paul Oltsher and myself to Steistol Lake within Greenwater Prov. Park, one that I like to call “Feeding the Fish Gods”. Now everyone who knows me would state that I speak of fact and truth. Also I don’t embellish or tell tales. So this is a ‘believe it or not’ story.
After hearing all the tales of Steistol Lake last summer, Paul and I planned a late season trip one early morning last October to try our luck. On the way to this hot spot, the main conversation was based on which way was best to go. Paul wanted to travel Hwy. #5 and I thought Hwy. #41 to Crooked River and then south through the park would be best.
Paul’s truck, he wins. I lost the first round.
As it turned out, it did save about twenty minutes off the travel time.
I lost the second round. We had left town around 6:30 and by 9:30 or so we were suiting up, as they say, in the parking area.
Of course, I was doing what I was not supposed to be doing by ‘smoking a fine cigar’. So I threw it on the ground by the truck, thinking I’d retrieve it later when we were ready to hike into the lake.
Well, you guessed it; the cigar was nowhere to be found. I searched low and low, seeing as it was supposed to be on the ground. Ha! Ha! The only things that I did find were a penny and a loonie. These I stuck in my wader pocket for luck.
Paul’s tales were still flowing as we were getting into our kick boats and I was feeling pretty excited about catching a large rainbow or two.
As we made our first pass down the lake, Paul was still quite confident of catching a plethora of fish. Me, I was having thoughts of ‘Skunk’ as neither one of us had so much as an offer.
When we neared the end of the lake, Paul said that it was weird since we should have been into some fish by this time. “Ha!” I yelled at him. “We haven’t fed the Fish Gods!” With that, I threw the penny out in front of him. No sooner had it hit the water than he got a very solid hit and he set the hook.
I then took the loonie and threw it out in front of myself. Within seconds I got a solid take. Both fish were in the 16”-18” class. Wow!
The rest of the day saw many more fish fall to our flies, most in the 18” range. Paul landed a male of 25”. I lost one about the same. All in all a very fine day.
As far as flies go, Paul’s little stick leech did the trick. Not saying the halfhog didn’t do well, just not as well. Maybe they thought the leech was a wooly bugger, you never know.
So in ending this little story, if things are going a little slow, remember to increase your odds by “Feeding the Fish Gods”.
P.S. I won the third round by, you guessed it, “Feeding the Fish Gods”.