After dinner Jeff read the Hunting Regulations booklet cover to cover AGAIN and asked me to clarify a few things and help him figure out exactly where we would be hunting so he could figure out what was in season and legal to hunt with his rifle. I love it that he took responsibility for knowing this all by himself, ahead of time. Last year I made the mistake of hunting with a father and son that clearly didn’t have a clue what was in season and what they could legally hunt with a .243 and a .22. After reading them the riot act when they both
at an out of season Goose in flight, 
I won’t ever go near them again and only stopped short of reporting them when they promised never to hunt again and would sell the guns. This wasn’t what I wanted, but probably was for the best.We hit the trail by ~8:oo which was way later than I wanted to, but not too bad. I was proud of how Jeff handled his rifle the whole time. This was his 1st time carrying a firearm in the field and it was never pointed in an unsafe direction, he didn’t load it until after we crossed the 1st fence and unloaded it for the 2nd fence crossing (which he didn’t know about until we saw it). He passed the rifle at the fence crossings like he had done it 100 times, yet it was obvious he was watching his P’s and Q’s. He was on point the whole time safety, hunting, and ethics wise.
We hiked and hunted slowly, spending a lot of time glassing the edges of the meadows the trail skirts. We saw scattered Cattle, but no game. At ~10:00 we came to “Come together lake”. There’s no fishing in this lake and it’s very well posted. It was obviously very low, but there were fairly nice fish rising everywhere. I noticed some of them seemed to be doing laps between the weed lines and the general area of a couple bubblers, feeding along the weed lines. I was thinking if the lake we’re headed to has anywhere near the activity of this lake, it should be an epic day. Jeff asked if we could take a swim here as it was starting to get hot. We swam for quite a while.
I noticed that fish would move into the areas we swam through about 5-10 minutes after we left that area. The Damselfly nymphs were on the move to hatch and there were also rafts of dead Midges that we freed from the weeds that were growing solid out to about 15’-20’ off shore. When we got out 17 Damselfly nymphs climbed out to hatch on the rock I got dressed on.
After seeing that I wanted to get to the other lake but Jeff wanted to continue hunting. In a little glade I saw a bear track crossing the trail. It hadn’t filled with water like some of the other tracks, all of which were in a seep. I figured the bear had crossed within the last hour, so that made my neck hair stand up. I told Jeff to come back and walk beside me but didn’t tell him why. We walked even slower after that and Jeff asked why. I told him if we were going to see anything, I figured this was the most likely area. We finally made it to the lake without incident and Jeff glassed around while I inflated the float-tube.
When we got there, there was a little wind. By the time I got the tube inflated and everything ready there were white caps out on the main body of water. I stuck to the edges for a while and Jeff walked the shoreline still hunting. The wind died down and after telling Jeff to stay within site I headed out to find a drop-off I’d been told to try. I fished it for a while as well as a few other areas for nothing. Then the wind started gusting and before I could make it back to where I launched from I took 4 waves over my head. Whitecaps were everywhere even rolling deep into the weeds. On hitting shore, I took down the tube and just sat there. I was a little depressed about the fishing, since this was a major portion of what I had planned the trip around, but the scene before me was beautiful even as it was disheartening.
To be Continued
Sorry about this turning into the combined Illiad and Oddesy long version. Hopefully you guys are liking it.
