JustSteve
04-29-2008, 04:16 PM
Well I started my day tossing hardware looking for steelhead but with a slip and fall, ended up snapping the handle off of my steelhead reel. That thing is over 25 years old and as big as a four barrel carberator, just as loud too, but it's got a lot of memories. Oh well, I figured i can find a replacment handle. I headed on down the road to a fishing shop in Cascade Locks were Tony maybe able to find something for me...
Well..turns out Tony wasn't in. That brings in the age old question of "what now". Well..stocked trout fishing ten miles away....trout rod in the back of the car...didn't take long to find myself at Hadelman Pond.
Now I have been fishing it a good bit since they started stocking it. Usually I catch it on the way home from work, around four pm or so. Depending on the day of the week there is usually 10 to 70 people scattered around. I hike a loop of the place, tossing hardware, usually picking up one or two trout. Each trip i keep seeing all this damn litter and it's been driving me up the wall. Buncha pigs. It's out of control, especially this past weekend with the high pressure, nice weather, and inconsiderate people. I tossed a couple of big contractor grade trash bags in the car to clean up the next time I visited...
Today was that next time. I parked over on the Columbia River Highway and walked down the railroad tracks to the riprap bank that most folks fish off of. I tossed a spoon for about 10 casts, just seeing what's out there. The swallows were swarming all over the lake so I figured there might be a hatch going on...no luck. So I converted over to a powerbait bottom fishing rig, leaned the pole up on a rock, and started picking up trash. I got about a third of the rock pile picked when I noticed my fishing pole doing the happy dance. That's one for dinner....back to trash patrol, just finished about 2/3 of the rock pile, noticed the pole doing another happy dance. Makes two for meal time. I finished cleaning the rock pile, got almost half of a 40 gallon trash bag filled. I ran up to the car, got a magazine to read for a bit, came back down, tossed the bait back out...and the skies opened.
I'm not talking your general little sprinkle rain spring time shower. I'm talking wind whipped ice pellets falling fast and thick enough to prevent you from looking up at the sky to read the clouds. Hail and wind just beating down like nobody's business. I kept telling myself "wait it out, you can do it, the weather will change in ten minutes". Over and over, kept telling myself..this front will pass, the bite will turn on, I will limit.
Amazing enough, I was right. In about ten minutes the hail passed, sun came out, the bite turned on. All in all about 2.5 hours yielded five planter trout for dinner, half a bag of trash, and a cleaner place to fish. Not a bad end to a day that started with a broken fishing reel. In the time I was at the lake, I saw three other people over on the fishing dock. Didn't notice if they were catching or not.
Steve
Well..turns out Tony wasn't in. That brings in the age old question of "what now". Well..stocked trout fishing ten miles away....trout rod in the back of the car...didn't take long to find myself at Hadelman Pond.
Now I have been fishing it a good bit since they started stocking it. Usually I catch it on the way home from work, around four pm or so. Depending on the day of the week there is usually 10 to 70 people scattered around. I hike a loop of the place, tossing hardware, usually picking up one or two trout. Each trip i keep seeing all this damn litter and it's been driving me up the wall. Buncha pigs. It's out of control, especially this past weekend with the high pressure, nice weather, and inconsiderate people. I tossed a couple of big contractor grade trash bags in the car to clean up the next time I visited...
Today was that next time. I parked over on the Columbia River Highway and walked down the railroad tracks to the riprap bank that most folks fish off of. I tossed a spoon for about 10 casts, just seeing what's out there. The swallows were swarming all over the lake so I figured there might be a hatch going on...no luck. So I converted over to a powerbait bottom fishing rig, leaned the pole up on a rock, and started picking up trash. I got about a third of the rock pile picked when I noticed my fishing pole doing the happy dance. That's one for dinner....back to trash patrol, just finished about 2/3 of the rock pile, noticed the pole doing another happy dance. Makes two for meal time. I finished cleaning the rock pile, got almost half of a 40 gallon trash bag filled. I ran up to the car, got a magazine to read for a bit, came back down, tossed the bait back out...and the skies opened.
I'm not talking your general little sprinkle rain spring time shower. I'm talking wind whipped ice pellets falling fast and thick enough to prevent you from looking up at the sky to read the clouds. Hail and wind just beating down like nobody's business. I kept telling myself "wait it out, you can do it, the weather will change in ten minutes". Over and over, kept telling myself..this front will pass, the bite will turn on, I will limit.
Amazing enough, I was right. In about ten minutes the hail passed, sun came out, the bite turned on. All in all about 2.5 hours yielded five planter trout for dinner, half a bag of trash, and a cleaner place to fish. Not a bad end to a day that started with a broken fishing reel. In the time I was at the lake, I saw three other people over on the fishing dock. Didn't notice if they were catching or not.
Steve