Intrepid Anglers Don’T Need Map To Plot Adventure

Like a thunderstorm brewing on the horizon, El Nino continues to factor into the woes and glory of hikers, climbers, anglers and other adventurers.

My friend Craig Werner called Wednesday to see if I could escape on a whim next week to backpack along Mount Robson, the spectacular British Columbia provincial park west of Jasper, Alberta.

“Can’t,” I said. “I’m flying to California.”

“California!” he said, all but shrieking. “The weather’s been crummy in California, but it’s been mostly sunny up north in May and June. They got the trails cleared way earlier than normal.”

Getting one of the limited number of permits to camp in Robson Park is difficult during summer. But permits are easy to come by this time of year because the weather normally is the pits.

“I’m heading north,” Werner said. “This is too good an opportunity to miss.”

He’s right. And if it weren’t for nonrefundable airline tickets, I’d probably be heading north with him. Instead, I’ll be trying to scale Mount Shasta, a California peak where goofy wet weather has been giving climbers fits.

It’s not as though I haven’t tried to take advantage of the strange weather patterns.

Recently I talked two friends into joining me in the Columbia Basin to search for a remote desert trout lake.

The weather had been so cool in late May. Water temperatures were still ideal for trout fishing, even in the state’s South Columbia Basin Wildlife Recreation Area near Moses Lake.

A tip from a biologist suggested the fly-fishing could be good at Harris Lake.

I searched topo quads for the lake, but couldn’t find it among the countless scattered seeps, ponds, sloughs and marshes near the Winchester Wasteway.

“No, no,” the biologist said. “It’s not labeled on any map. It’s a mile walk in. There’s not much of a trail, but you can find your way.”

One must be careful when choosing partners for a hike to a place you’ve never been and fishing you’ve yet to verify, especially when it’s in the desert.

I had just the men for the job.

“It’s a cakewalk into this incredible lake that’s stuffed with fish and hardly anyone knows about it,” I deadpanned to Dave Moershel and Dick Rivers.

“You’re not going to write and tell anyone about this place, are you,” Moershel said.

“No, I swear.”

“It must be good, then. Count me in.”

“Since it’s such a short hike, I’ll bring my big tube instead of my backpacking float tube,” Rivers said.

We rendezvoused from different directions at sunset at the end of a dirt road among the sand dunes. We began as all good fishing trips should, with a strategizing session, complete with maps, Coronas, limes, chips and salsa under the desert moon.

“Here’s a map of the area, but the lake’s not on it,” I said.

Moershel and Rivers nodded knowingly.

This was going to be good.

“We’ll start about 5 a.m.,” I said. “The fishing could taper off in the heat of the day. Besides, the desert is alive in the morning.”

So was Rivers, who woke us at 4 a.m.

“If 5 a.m. is good, 4 a.m. is better,” he said.

We followed the biologist’s detailed notes to the letter. That part was easy, since the entire body of directions amounted to only 10 or 12 words scribbled on a scrap of paper.

“He said there was hardly any trail in some places, so this must be it,” I said, looking at some game tracks meandering out through the sagebrush.

We proceeded to wander. As the map indicated, a lake, pond or slough hugged tight against virtually every sand dune we crossed.

The mission was complicated by the biologist’s warning that Harris Lake was paralleled a few hundred yards away by the similar-shaped Desert Lake.

“Harris Lake has fish,” I told my friends.

“Desert Lake is barren.”

“There’s hundreds of lakes out here,” Rivers noted.

“But only one is stuffed with trout and fishing beautifully long after the rainbows should have started sulking from the summer heat,” I reminded him.

“You can thank El Nino for that.”

“Who do I thank for wandering hours in the desert while wearing neoprene chest waders?” Moershel said.

“You can thank El Nino for that, too.”

We proved many things that most people already know that day.

Getting an early start is helpful when trying to find a no-name lake, especially when you start from the wrong parking area.

A cellular phone also is helpful in such cases.

Your friends are less likely to beat you to a pulp if you use the cellular phone before you’ve wandered eight hours in the desert while wearing neoprene chest waders.

Even when you get the directions straight, when a biologist says the hike into a lake is one mile, expect it to be at least twice that far.

The desert is alive in the morning with the sounds of birds and waterfowl, but ticks make up the bulk of the biomass.

When I rolled my Brittany, Radar, onto his back at one point in the wandering, his belly resembled a freshly split watermelon - pink and full of seeds.

We finally found Harris Lake at 2 p.m. Moershel made his first cast at 2:15.

How was the fishing? I can’t say for sure. I had to leave to hike out and reach home for a family camping date before I had a chance to cast a line.

I heard some whoops and howls as I tramped through the desert back to the car.

Maybe it was Moershel catching trout.

Maybe it had something to do with all the ticks I pulled out of the dog and put in Rivers’ waders.

Blame it on El Nino.