Fishing on Echo Lake

31.07.2008

Today was very much a lazy day. KJ had to go to the pet store at 11 to wait for an order of fish and stuff, so I went with him there and waited until the fish came. The store is called Petland, and really I was surprised at just how MUCH stuff was crammed into that store. You could get any kind of bird, fish, lizard, cat or dog that you want at that store, along with the appropriate accessories and food of course.

I watched the cats and dogs play, tried to see if a parrot would fall off of his perch (he came really close) and really improved on my fish phobia by completely immersing myself in the little cubby at the back, which was just PACKED with all kinds of decorative sea creatures. Ick! I was OK though, in an attempt at getting mentally prepared for fishing later on.

So, finally the fish KJ was waiting for came, and he put them into the tanks. We were off to go fishing! But first, to buy a licence. $35 later we had one non-resident licence for me, a BC resident licence for KJ, and of course, who could forget the package of maggots? (KJ seemed disappointed that there were no meal worms left) Oh man, I thought, how the hell am I going to handle this? I tried to ignore the bad thoughts in my head, and we drove out of town to a place called Echo Lake. There's just so much incredible scenery here, describing it over and over again really does it no justice. I was reminded of a trip to the Yukon I took back in 1999. Also incredible.

We got to the lake, and then parked the truck, so that we could walk down to the beach. It was too bad that we didn't have a boat, but we still had fun casting and re-casting our fishing line into the water. KJ put the first few maggots on my hook, and I watched with utter disgust and horror. Ewwww grooooosssssssssss. OK, so he showed me how to throw it into the water, as far as possible, and slowly reel it in. So far so good. The dock was pretty much sinking, so I went over to the beach to throw the line in there. The first thing I did, was snag it on a rock, and KJ had to make me a new hook. OKOKOK! I can do this! I can put the maggot on by myself, I thought. Oh boy... yes, Louise put a fresh maggot onto the end of a pointy hook... It took about an hour to actually get up the nerve to touch it myself. KJ has a video and he will post it on YouTube soon, I'm pretty sure. I threw my line back into the water a few more times and wouldn't you know it?! I caught a damn fish! I FREAKED RIGHT OUT, swinging the poor, injured creature around and not knowing what to do, it fell off the hook and flopped on the shore, right back into the water. Ohhhhhhhh poo, no dinner tonight I guess. But wow, I got over some crazy fears of mine...at least a little bit. I still don't think I would ever actually TOUCH a fish... but yesterday, I didn't think I'd actually ever touch a maggot in my life...so who knows?! Maybe I'll be filleting and baiting some more in Yellowknife, later.

We hung around fishing for quite a while, ate some trail mix and then headed back to Coldstream. It's an hour drive, so by the time we got there, it was about 6 p.m. KJ's mom had cooked up some vegetables, and we made some pasta to go with it. Then we just hung out and chatted on the back porch (which has a beautiful view of the mountains, btw) watching the quails and pheasants romp around the yard.

I was pretty sleepy, and I think KJ was too, so we didn't do much of anything after that. I wrote down the directions to Tappen just now, and here I am writing this blog. I think it's bedtime. Night night.

View from KJ's kitchen