Mother's Day Weekend

Tom has found a new tradition for Mother's Day weekend - send his wife to Seattle with her girlfriends, leave Tori in charge of getting her younger siblings to soccer, and then fish all night with Rick. Rick had been invited by his recent fishing partner, Kirk Morris, to try out night fishing at Lake Lenice. Since the lake is about halfway between Richland and Wenatchee, an invite to the brothers seemed to be in order. Tom accepted, but Rob had a lame excuse about a cancer fundraiser for a family friend (OK, we will accept that excuse, and an 18-month mission, but no others). It was OK, because Kirk was farming fish so much that we told him it was just like we were fishing with Rob!

 

Well, the first thing I will say is that it is nice to discover that we don't need to limit our fishing time to the paltry 16 hours of daylight the summer offers. We can now fish any time of day or night, or even round the clock in a 24-hour marathon! We met at the lake at 2 am just as the three-quarter moon was starting to rise above the Saddle Mountains to the south. Clear night, absolutely calm, and temp in the low 50's. Couldn't have asked for much better. By 2:30 am, we were on the lake, kicking our pontoons out into the darkness. The moon gave us just enough light to keep track of the shoreline and each other. Within a few minutes, Kirk had the first hit, then another. Tom followed. Rick changed to the small black bunny leach that seemed to be getting the attention, and he too soon found fish. The night action wasn't tremendously fast, and the fish were not super large, but the action was fairly consistent through the dark hours of the morning. There were lots of short strikes, which gave a good pull but nothing there when the hook was set. Also, the fish seemed to not get hooked as well, especially for Rob, I mean, Kirk. But there sure was something cool about being the only ones in the darkness of the lake, feeling the tug on the line, then hearing the fish jumping somewhere out in the darkness.

 

The sun just rising and we already had several hours of fishing in!

Note all the dead flies on the water - this lake has some prolific hatches

As the sky began to lighten in the east, we could see fish beginning to rise, apparently eating the leftovers from the previous day's prolific fly hatch. The surface of the lake was covered with spent flies. We switched to chironomids for the rest of the morning, with size 14 and black or dark seeming to be about the right size and color. The most action was at about 10 to 11 feet down, sometimes pretty fast, sometimes a little slow.

Saddle Mountains reflection while Rick's fish tries to turn Tom into Jonah

The telephoto keeps Tom honest by negating his world-class long-arming technique

A beautiful day to be on the water

About 9:30 am we headed back to the parking lot and Kirk cooked up some bacon, eggs, and English muffins so we could approximate the McDonald's #8 - just needed some hash browns. It was a concept foreign to Rick and Tom to mix fishing with eating, but both agreed it was actually a good idea and we might have to invite Kirk to join us again if he brings food again. Tom and Rick left for home, while Kirk stuck around for the inevitable mid-morning midge hatch. His report - "You should have stuck around..." That's what makes fishing great - the next cast, the next hour, the next day, the next trip, always the hope and expectation of better things to come. We'll be back to Lenice, maybe even for another night of fishing. And it might be even better...