More fishing

It's the last week of summer for school kids.  A few made a day at Lake Aberdeen with picnics, swimming, etc.  The sight of overindulgent pale people in swimsuits made me think of really cheap beer.  I had taken my canoe and new fishing gear, expecting to mostly get practice casting as on earlier visits.  About noon, I put into the calm water and paddled to the middle, where I extended my new Tenkara rod, put on a furled fly line and cast a fly from the box that came with the Wetfly Tenkara Package I got from Backcountry.com.  Fish rose to insects all around--none went for my fly.  As the wind picked up, I paddled to the west side and cast the fly into calmer water below trees, where some fish went for the fly, but not well enough to set the hook.  These were strikes, not fish nudging the fly out of curiosity--the fish had moved on before I could react to set the hook myself.

I paddled to the east shore, and here the fish overcame their carelessness and bit hard, setting the hook.  I pulled in a couple 10" fish and a few smaller fish, releasing all into the lake but one that I invited as a guest for dinner.  The bigger fish fought well--my first dinner guest escaped when I tried to club it over the head with my paddle, so I returned to the east shore and caught another, dropping him into the foot pocket of my canoe.  I put him into my shoe when I got to shore--his presence at dinner wasn't optional.  Because I didn't think I'd caught a trout species, I went to John's house--he said I caught a pike minnow/squaw fish, which he'd never heard of anyone eating.  Fishing these near the Columbia River brings a bounty of ~$4 per fish, because this native "junkfish" feeds on salmon and steelhead babies.  I got the rice cooking and the fish in the steamer.

A cellphone photo.

The fish cooked for 15 minutes--it tasted like trout, though with more than its share of tiny, colorless bones begging to choke me.  A little soy sauce and sesame oil made this fish a star.  These are more fun to pull in than to eat, like Jiffy Pop popcorn (back in the day).

The three hours on the lake put to death my view that fish only feed at twilight.
New rule:  Fish feed when they see what looks like food and if they think they can get away with taking it.

Newer rule:  If I can catch fish, anyone can.