Excursion to Hatcher Pass

  

 

The girls and I had such a good time last week when we went to Kepler Lake, we decided to go fishing again. Liz has been on vacation, and Autumn has been off work waiting for the new location for the cafe' to get the necessary permits so they can open. We wanted to try Hatcher Pass again. Last time I was there in June with Camille and her daughter Justine, there was still ice and a foot of snow on the lake.

I checked with Fish and Game and found out that they stocked the lake on July 4, but it still had ice and snow on it. We figured by now, it had to have thawed out. We wanted to catch some of the thousand trout that ADFG had stocked. This time, I figured that I would offer the trout something other than nightcrawlers so I wouldn't have to spend all my time baiting the girl's hooks. I brought a handful of frozen, raw shrimp with me. I still ended up baiting some of the hooks and taking a few of the fish off, but for the most part, I spent most of my time baiting my own hooks and releasing the trout that I myself caught. I wasn't keeping count, but I figured I had caught a dozen or so. It was a lot of fun. At least for me. My granddaughter Abby was getting a little frustrated. She kept getting lots of bites, with the fish taking the bobber underwater and running with it, but she had the hardest time keeping them on. I don't know what I was doing right, but it was a refreshing turn of events for me to be on the winning side of things. 

I kept expecting something unpleasant to happen, like getting hooked in the ear or sliding into the freezing cold water from my chair, but as it was, the worse thing that happened was a few clumsy buffoons let their dogs jump into the water near where we were fishing. I also had to contend with having my picture taken by some foreign tourists who were all excited by the little fish I was catching. Oh, and finding a place to park. We went up there on a Monday, thinking that most of the tourists would have visited over the weekend,  but once again, I was wrong. People were parking on the side of the road, in all the regular parking spots and one knucklehead was parked on the side of the mountain, although I suspect that wasn't intentional. There is a sign at the start of the road to Summit Lake that mentions that it's a primitive road. That's an understatement. It's an uphill gravel road with little room for error or passing, and only a fool would drive down it too fast. I'd never seen a car on the side of the mountain before, and I'm sure that's not where the driver thought he'd find himself. I don't know how they're going to get it out of there, but I'm sure the state will insist that he remove it at some great  personal expense.

I'd like to go back up there and go fishing some more, but apparently I'll have to wait until the weather is miserable so I won't  have to deal with all the hikers, dog walkers, paragliders and over confident Mario Andretti wannabes.