My Life and Travels
Nice warm day, high was 87.
We got to move to a new site today the one we were in is reserved for tonight. We are in site 14 on the opposite side of the campground from the river.
Here are a couple of pictures of yesterday’s travel.
We came over Chinook Pass and through Yakima.
Here’s a campsite picture of site 14.
Left home at 11:00 arrived at 3:50.
In site 41 to the tune of $45.00 a night.
We do have a site right on the Columbia River and it is 79 degrees.
This is from the edge of our site.
And Hank is enjoying the sun. The original plan was to move to Bend, Oregon tomorrow. The weather forecast for here is 80 Monday and 77 Tuesday whereas Bend is going to be 60 – 64. Think we are staying here.
We are on our way to OH Ridge Campground on June Lake in eastern California for the Memorial Weekend with Richard and Vicki. We will than go someplace for a couple of weeks returning home before Father’s Day.
Here are Friday’s fish.
Retirement is Great, I have achieved another one of those Life’s triumphs.
This is the largest lowland lake trout I have ever caught. It is 15+ inches and weighs just over a pound and a half. The glass cutting board is 11 inches across. It was fun to catch but I was sure worried it might get off before I could get it in the boat.
Great day of fishing, more trout for the smoker.
Ok, I’ve added more pictures.
Tanya is moving to Poulsbo so she gave me her BBQ. My goal was to figure out how to use it to smoke the trout I have been catching. I was not able to figure out how to get smoke and be able to cook the fish at a low temperature. I solved by fish smoking challenge with a Masterbuilt Pro.
I spent Saturday putting it together and getting it seasoned. In the evening I learned to fillet trout and put they in a brine I learned about at Bradley Smoker’s website. After filleting 10 trout I started to figure out the process. One of the key elements of filleting small trout is to sharpen the knife between each fish.
By the way here is Friday catch, looks a lot like Wednesday and Thursday.
Here is the smoker getting ready to smoke fish.
75 minutes we have smoked trout.
And yes it is good.
Here is lunch:
This morning was another day of fishing. Today I did have the use of my electric motor so I didn’t get near as much exercise.
But I did cover a lot of the lake. I caught the first four in about 45 minutes (got to the lake around 8:00 a.m., I don’t wear a watch since I retired so I don’t always know what time it is) and then didn’t land the last one until after 11:00 a.m.
I caught the largest one last. The largest one weighed 3/4 of a pound and all five weighed 2.5 pounds. I hope to smoke these and Friday’s catch this weekend.
InReach tracking says I traveled 2.73 miles today on the lake and 2.89 miles yesterday.
One of my retirement goals was to start doing some lowland lakes trout fishing. Today was my first day out on Lake Wilderness. I got to the lake a little after 7:00 a.m. and had my five trout by 11:15 a.m.
They range from 8 to 12 inches.
This is an aerial view of the lake’s location.
Here is a road map view of the lake’s location.
In 1976 Dad and I built two boats for fishing and sailing. My boat has been in the garage since probably 1979 or so. We moved to Enumclaw in 1977 and Tanya was born in 1979, I don’t think I have used this boat since Tanya was born.
My boat is the yellow one sitting in the lake.
Here are a couple of pictures of truck I recently purchased and by fishing/sail boat. It has actually taken a while to get the boat cleaned and to rebuild the trailer. It needed new tires, lights and hitch coupler.
It was a good day and I’ll be out again tomorrow morning. Tanya is giving me her BBQ now that she is moving to Poulsbo and I think I have figured out how to use it to smoke trout.
Sunny day at Fort Flagler.
The park is full this evening and some people had to leave without finding a place to stay.
Hank and I went for a walk this morning.
Here is the aerial picture:
On the walk we saw two coyotes, and I got a picture of the second one.
It is a beautiful day at Fort Flagler
Sunny and warm for April, we will be here at least through the weekend and maybe for a week or so. We have site 115 which is a front row seat to the northern opening of Puget Sound.
By the way it is first day back to work for the lovely Mrs. Tanya Garcia our son-in-law Mike Garcia doesn’t return to work until Monday. They are both wonderful people.
Another project has been to get my 12 foot lake fishing boat back up and running/floating.
Today I put a new hitch coupler on the trailer. Dad and I built two boats in 1976 and the trailer I have for my boat was new in 1969. The coupler was in pretty tough shape so today I cut the old one off and bolted a new one on. The original was welded onto the 3 inch box channel of the trailer’s frame.
I didn’t take a before picture, this is after the old coupler was cut off and I was cutting the welds off with a hack saw. I did a lot of the cutting with a 3 inch air cutter I purchased from Harbor Freight several years ago. I think I paid about $7.00 for it.
You got to love Harbor Freight.
Here is another picture of hand cutting the old weld bead off the trailer frame.
The new coupler, it is much better condition then the old one and should keep the trailer attached to the truck. I’m looking forward returning to fishing this spring.
This post is under “Life’s triumphs” because one of my retirement goals was to replace the pickup I got rid of shortly after I started at Helac.
Yesterday we got a 2010 Ford Ranger 4WD so Hank and I can drive up into the hills and I can tow my 12 foot fishing boat. It feels like spring here and fishing season will start after Tanya wedding.