noun
1.
an exciting or very unusual experience.
2.
participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises: the spirit of adventure.
3.
a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.
4.
a commercial or financial speculation of any kind; venture.
As a young gun, I always thought I was after the fish or that big deer. As I get older, and hopefully wiser, I have started to realize that when I head into the outdoors, it’s all about the adventure. When you spend time outside by yourself or with your buddies, you never know what you’re going to come across. If you think of all the adventures you have, you talk a lot about what happened on the adventure in the past that were funny. You never talk about the boring trips. We are always talking about past adventures while on new trips. This weekend was one of those adventures that I will probably never forget.
My buddy Luke had invited me up to his dads cabin to fish steelhead for the weekend. If you’re a steelhead angler, you know this winter has been really rough. I was really excited to get outside and be on a river watching a bobber go by with friends. The weekend started off great until we pulled into the cabin. When we pulled into the cabin, we found the driveway plowed, but the round-about completely blocked off from the snow falling off the roof. For some reason, every time I come up to the cabin in the winter sweet Mother nature finds a way to dump a bunch of snow in the driveway. That is all part of the adventure of going up north in the winter though. We had to remove this because we had a boat and there was no way to get into the cabin. We laughed about it but grabbed the shovels, a beer and went to work.
Saturday morning started off really cold. The fishing was tough but we were finding fish here and there. Pink salmon spawn was the ticket and fish wanted nothing else. Although we were hooking fish, landing was another story. They just would not stick. In our 4th spot, my buddy Luke hooked up with a fish. The fish stuck to the bottom and would move from left to right but stay in the hole. The fish never pulled off line but also never left the bottom. If you have fished for a long time, you know when this happens that you are hooked up with a big fish. This tug-of-war lasted for about 5 minutes until the fish threw the hooked. We never got to see the fish and it will only be a fish story from here on out. We were highly disappointed.
Other then the grill not starting up to cook some venison burgers, it was a great day on the river. I ended up hooking up with a couple and putting them in the boat. The last fish was a 10 lb buck that fell victim to a jig we call the bloody b**** tipped with wax worms. It felt good to finally hook up with some Chrome after a long winter.
*Forgot to switch over the SLR camera to auto instead of manual.
However, what made this trip memorable, if you would want to call it that, was when we got back to my buddies cabin. We had a crock pot full of Chilli. After the grill not working and only eating junk all day, we were really looking forward to this meal. Luke scarfed down two bowls and Harris and I each had one. While eating I thought the beans were kind of chewy but I don’t cook with beans very much so I thought very little of it. Harris then fell a sleep and Luke and I stayed up watching some pointless TV show tying jigs. After an hour, our stomachs started to not feel well at all. I will not give you the details about what happened for the next 12 hours but all 3 of our stomachs did not like the Chilli. If you have ever had food poisoning, you could imagine what we went through. After hours of discussion, we come to the conclusion that it must have been the un-cook beans that we used in the Chilli that caused the food poison.
Although we lost a lot of fishing time, I do not think any of us will ever forget this trip. If the food poisoning did not help, there would not have been much of a story for future times other than tough fishing. We will probably laugh about this one for years to come. Yeah, we caught fish, but we will probably talk about the snow shoveling, the grill not working and the food poison caused by the uncook beans more than anything. It’s a trip I will never forget.
This winter will also be one to remember. Here are a few pictures I took from down river. I wonder if we will ever see this again in our lives.
A big “Thank You” goes out to my buddy Luke for inviting me up to his family cabin. It was a great weekend being back up north.
Also, for anyone who follows Great Lakes Edge facebook page, I have taken a break from facebook for lent. I was spending too much time on facebook and I was falling behind on a lot of stuff that needed to get done. I will also be moving for a job and have a lot to get done before I move. I will be posting on this blog more about my adventures and will share them via the “share” button on wordpress. I am also hoping to get some videos done from my vacation to the Bahamas and some other steelhead videos.
I hope everyone is getting out in the outdoors. One of these days the weather will break and it will be chrome time. Till my next adventure, I will be tying jigs and prepping for this years steelhead run and the upcoming summer recreation opportunities.
-Dan
Chrome Seekers 