Raw waters in cedar: October 2008

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Christmas tree.

I fished til dark and waited for this guy to pull up to the launch area, he had caught a fish just downriver from me about 30 minutes earlier. He was stoked about his fish but had forgotten a camera, so I shot this for him, it's also about as close as I've been to a fish so far this season. I asked him what he'd used and he said a kwik-fish with sardine, my favourite way to fish for chinook. "At first I thought it was a coho the way it softly mouthed the bait before it started to really fight. We were surrounded out there" he continued, "the finder was light up like a christmas tree, so many fish swimming under us!" It belied the quiet river where just the heads of seals seeking out dinner, rolled to break the surface, .

An eagle had landed just above my head in the trees and called his mate, I hoped it would trigger a fish to the spinner it's funny how the mind works that way..... but no such mystical event happened. The flock of ducks across the river had all hit the water to avoid the eagle long before it showed and they swam nervously until it quietly flew off.

I could hear them coming before they flew over, thousands of geese from the north and out of the fog, honking loudly in their ever changing V patterns. As they flew over a light rain began to hit the water, but it wasn't rain, just quiet goose shit dropping into the water. I pulled the hoodie over and stopped looking up.

Up in the hills with the north wind pushing sea air into the firs I dug out chantrelles that had grown to the size of my hand, delicate tops of the unseen life below. Left a lot of small ones in the hope that after the weekend there will be some left if not the forest will just push up more soon enough......