Outdoor Bloggers Gather. Fish in Feeding Frenzy.

As the blogging hordes descended upon Mt. Shasta for the Outdoor Bloggers Ho-Down, I shirked my adult responsibilities, “cutting and running” in the late afternoon so I could float tube Gumboot Lake - the heavily fished alpine lake where the ho-downers pitched their tents.

A ho-downer (writer of the Little Po blog) around the campfire.

First, the fishing.

I’ve written about Gumboot Lake before; it’s very easy on the eyes and features fishy-looking cover like lily pads, thule weeds and… a lot of stocked trout. Still, like any alpine lake, it can turn dark and moody, leaving you to wonder if there actually any damned fish in the thing.

That wasn’t so much the case on Friday. After pushing away from the shore, tossing my fly over the side of the tube, kicking for 10 feet, and catching a trout, it seemed like this wasn’t going to be too hard.

Another 20 feet (and another trout later), I figured it might be pretty easy. It was. Laughably so.

Some call this a rainbow. The eagles and ospreys at Gumboot call it dinner.

Normally, I’m all for catching lots of fish.

But when it gets too easy, it’s hard to revel in the fact that you’re one crafty son of a bitch, especially when a pair of shore-bound ten year-olds are matching you fish for fish, and the trout are showing all the selectivity of starving hogs.

I’m guessing the lake was stocked just a day or two prior (I can congratulate myself on my timing if not my fishing skills), and feeding a family the size of the Osmonds would have been a 90 minute job (including cleaning).

For the record, I fished an intermediate line with a peacock-bodied soft hackle, a hare’s ear soft hackle, and even some sparkly soft hackle I tied years ago but never had the guts to fish.

All worked equally well.

I’d have to compare this fishing trip to a visit to Las Vegas; fun, but hardly real.

The Ho Down

It was nice to stand around a campfire for a few hours with a handful of other outdoor bloggers. Tomorrow we take a quick six mile hike to the Seven Lakes Basin (some real backcountry lakes).

Since I tend to get a little anti-social when alpine lakes and fly rods are in close proximity, I’m probably going to leave the fly rod at home. Still, I’m taking a camera and my now-world-famous wit.

So stand by. See you at the Ho-Down, Tom Chandler

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