digitalschmidt
05-09-2007, 02:28 PM
My brothers and I drove up from L.A. late Thursday night into the snow and cold. We sat in the car at the docks at Gull Lake until sunrise on Friday then headed to the Fisherman's Trail on the west side of Gull--not before stopping at the just-opened June Lake branch of Shat's Bakery for coffee and pastries with the wonderful Angel (grand-daughter to Eric Shat). She just opened a small shop just down the road from Ernie's and Tiger Bar and has one of the best spreads a fisherman's eyes could dream up. Stop in and say hi from the Schmidt brothers.
But I digress...
Between snow flurries, temps in the 30's, and shots of Jameson's, the fishing wasn't great. We had multiple poles in the water at all times, fishing a combination of PowerBait and Worms and the occasional spoon from the rocks with no luck. We headed back to the same spot in the evening and did only a bit better, netting two 12ish rainbows and losing another all on various colors of PB.
We rented the Pontoon boat all-day Saturday which would turn out to be another crappy day of weather. We were on the water by 6:30 and frozen by 8:00. We gave up fighting the snow and cold and headed back to Shat's for shelter and warmth. Did I say how good the ham and cheese croissants were? After thawing out and heading back to the lodge for a few more layers of clothing we headed back out for the day.
Other than the beer, comedy and food, the day on the lake was brutal. At one point we were doing shots of Kahlua just to stay warm. The wind blew us all over the lake, the small anchors no match for the power of nature.
The day wasn't a total loss as we probably saved a life. A boater had fallen overboard retrieving a hat from the water. He was a big guy and couldn't pull himself back into the high-sided motorboat. "Motorboat" is a generous term as they only had a trolling motor. We asked them if they needed help and quickly pulled our anchors up and lines in and headed over to help. As a reminder, the air temp was in the low 30s, high 20's. I can only imagine how cold that water was. Anyway, we managed to pull him into our boat as his strength was just about giving way. We rushed him back to the marina and he was fine. We did see his hat later that day in the reeds.
Back at the marina, a group of guys had pulled in some nice rainbows, one measuring in at 5-2, so it was nice to see somebody beat the weather. Congrats to them. I also got to see my picture on the table from last summer's trip with my 3-12 bow, so I walked a bit taller on the way out.
We left on Sunday (amid beautiful warm weather, of course) a bit disappointed in our efforts, but had fun weekend nonetheless. Can't wait to get back.
But I digress...
Between snow flurries, temps in the 30's, and shots of Jameson's, the fishing wasn't great. We had multiple poles in the water at all times, fishing a combination of PowerBait and Worms and the occasional spoon from the rocks with no luck. We headed back to the same spot in the evening and did only a bit better, netting two 12ish rainbows and losing another all on various colors of PB.
We rented the Pontoon boat all-day Saturday which would turn out to be another crappy day of weather. We were on the water by 6:30 and frozen by 8:00. We gave up fighting the snow and cold and headed back to Shat's for shelter and warmth. Did I say how good the ham and cheese croissants were? After thawing out and heading back to the lodge for a few more layers of clothing we headed back out for the day.
Other than the beer, comedy and food, the day on the lake was brutal. At one point we were doing shots of Kahlua just to stay warm. The wind blew us all over the lake, the small anchors no match for the power of nature.
The day wasn't a total loss as we probably saved a life. A boater had fallen overboard retrieving a hat from the water. He was a big guy and couldn't pull himself back into the high-sided motorboat. "Motorboat" is a generous term as they only had a trolling motor. We asked them if they needed help and quickly pulled our anchors up and lines in and headed over to help. As a reminder, the air temp was in the low 30s, high 20's. I can only imagine how cold that water was. Anyway, we managed to pull him into our boat as his strength was just about giving way. We rushed him back to the marina and he was fine. We did see his hat later that day in the reeds.
Back at the marina, a group of guys had pulled in some nice rainbows, one measuring in at 5-2, so it was nice to see somebody beat the weather. Congrats to them. I also got to see my picture on the table from last summer's trip with my 3-12 bow, so I walked a bit taller on the way out.
We left on Sunday (amid beautiful warm weather, of course) a bit disappointed in our efforts, but had fun weekend nonetheless. Can't wait to get back.