After some coffee and putzing around, we all met at the lodge for a big breakfast. Then Kevin took Matt and I fishing.
We went to a few of the bays below the rapids and worked the weedy edges. Fishing was pretty slow. Throughout the morning Matt and I combined hooked into somewhere around 10 pike. None of them were big, but when fish hit, it is still quite fun. A couple would have been keeper/eater size, but Kevin didn't say to keep any of them.
At one point my cast went wild. This happens, but it also made a funny noise - I had lost an eyelet near the top of the rod. I started to take they eyelet off to finish fishing, and when I did this I noticed the eyelet cup left a sharp edge that I didn't want near my line. When I started to gently push this down with a small pliers, the pole disintegrated at the joint. As best I can figure, it was a cheap rod/reel combo I could afford somewhere around 1992 during the poverty years of college. I have definitely gotten my money's worth out of it.
Thankfully Matt had an extra rod with him that he let me use. On my first cast I caught a pike. Matt balked (jokingly). "OK Matt, half of this fish is yours..." The mood in the boat was good even if the fishing was a bit slow.
By early afternoon we headed back to camp for lunch. I had time for a quick nap and a shower, and it was time to head out for bears.
Kevin took me to Petrushney Bay (I still don't know how to spell it). I've sat in this stand several times; I don't think I've ever shot a bear here, but have definitely seen them.
It took me a while to get comfortable. Not because it was an uncomfortable stand - if anything the opposite. But just getting into the groove of hunting took some time. I let myself doze a little bit early on, knowing most activity would be likely to be later.
The evening passed very slowly. And the evening passed without any bears; this makes for a painfully long and slow time.
But there were many positives to the forced slow down. The absolutely enormous crows were fun to watch. There were some adorable birds (which I could not get a picture of) that kept sitting near me. Whiskey Jacks are fun to watch and have a lot of lore associated with them in Canadian history. Unfortunately, this luck can be either good or bad. And so it is. I have good luck to even be able to go on a Canadian bear hunt, but on this day I have bad, as I never saw a bear.
Thankfully the bugs were almost non-existent after the first few minutes in the stand. There was enough wind that it made hearing much difficult, especially since I was sitting in some quaking aspens. As often happens, when darkness approached, it got breathlessly still. I was surprised that even sitting where I was, I could hear the roar of the dam. I love being able to go to wild places, but it is truly difficult to escape the cacophony of humans.
I was the first hunter back in camp while the other people filtered in. Matt and I had not seen bears, everyone else had. Jody had shot a bear, but needed to return in the morning to look for it. Most of the bears were smaller - one woman had an adorable video of a very young bear; I'll always freely admit some cognitive dissonance at shooting bears... Kelly had seen five bears - all during the last 45 minutes on the stand.
After a very late salmon dinner, I bolted to go to sleep.
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