Friday morning started off extremely cold on the Pan. Air temps at 6 degrees and a fairly swift wind had the wind chill in the negatives. It was beyond cold, I sprayed the rod guides with some pam cooking spray to help minimize water freezing up in the guides. It didn't help much, at those temps everything freezes instantly. I fished the flats and it was loaded with fish. A lot of spawning fish to avoid but plenty of fish staging behind them eating eggs and small jujubee midges. The fish kept the blood warm for a little bit but after a few hours the hands just got to cold. Your typical vampire movie shows scenes of vampires being killed and turning to stone and then just crumbling to pieces. That's how my hands and fingers felt, like solid pieces of glass just waiting to be shattered with the slightest bump. I remember setting the hook on one fish just for the rod to fly out of hand as I had no feeling or touch to keep control. Lucky the rod fell into the crease of my elbow and not in the water and I was still able to land the fish. A nice 18" cuttbow with beautiful colors from feeding on mysis shrimp. I had plans to spend all day up there. I looked at the toilet bowl but fishing an area the size of your average swimming pool with 4 other guys didn't really appeal to me. Eventually the cold and frozen guides got to me and I decided to call it a day early. It was around 11 am and still 17 degrees. I decided to head back to the valley of the Fork were the temps were warmer and the fishing just as good. I finished the day up there, the fishing was slower than the day before but 30 degree temps were a whole lot more manageable.
Some horses out in the snow.
Nice Cuttbow with great colors.
Looking up stream from the flats.
Ice would form on the fish within moments
of taking them out of the water.
Can't beat the scenery.
Pretty bow on a rojo midge.
6 degrees
No comments:
Post a Comment