Sometimes, you gotta help out a buddy when rough times hit.
I get the phone call a couple of weeks ago and my boy, my catcher from HS was going through some serious shit and needed a weekend to forget. Thanks everyone for throwing out suggestions in a previous thread, but we decided to hit up Chopaka for a bit of fishing and man therapy.
Key ingrediants were
1. Lots of beer
2. Lots of grilled meats, brats, etc
3. Way, way to many flies than we actually needed
4. No girly "veggies"
5. No labels that said "fat free"
6. Lots of fishing time
We arrived at the lake around 11am and rushed through camp setup and gear set up to get on the water. My buddy was amazed after such a long drive and long road up to the lake as to how many people made the trip up. With such quality fishing to be had, we all know why we make that trip up the nasty Chopaka grade
Chronomids produced a few fish right off the bat, then we went cold for a couple of hours. A hoard of boats congregated at the south end of the lake, and while knowing that the fish were more likely to be down there, we didn't go up there to combat fish
The fish we did catch were as healthy, acrobatic and fat as I have seen in lakes. Nearly all came firing out of the water, many several times
We did find considerable success as night approached dragging buggers around the lake. These fish hit like trucks, and fought hard, hard, hard
There's nothing better than wolfing down brats, building a big fire and catching up with a true friend. The weather couldn't have been better, and many beers were fired down as my buddy got the chance to get a lot of shit off his chest and think through with what's going down in his life.
Day two we battled wind for much of the morning. I did again pick up a few on chronomids, but I couldn't find any considerable success. We tried damsels, this that and the other. While we weren't striking out, we were picking up a few fish here and there. Lakes aren't my forte, and I am missing some key ingredients to really dial in for lakes, mainly an intermediate sink tip. The guys that really, really know what their doing have 2-3 rods on their vessels, and can readily change at a moments notice. We on the other hand had a couple of sink tips, floating lines and full sinks. I could have killed for an intermediate line.
Post lunch we stuck to our full sinks and started to rattle some cages. It wasn't a numbers fest, but we were getting ours. I was really enjoying watching my bro whack fish, you could see the stress fall off in piles
We did get the bright idea of hiking the ridge behind the camp. Stunning views are available for those who need a break from fishing
A few more bows came our way after dinner and another evening of old stories, past events, old athletic glory and failure. Man therapy at its finest
We broke camp this morning and came home, both feeling much better. Tough fighting rainbows, no veggies, dirt camping, lots of coors light and good buddies will do that for ya
