Gales of November

Over the last week or so, Andy (also referred to as Art) and I headed to the French for some fine night-time trout fishing on two separate occasions.  Our first outing was Thursday.  Art attributed the lack of other fishermen as a sign that they know more than us and it is the wrong time to be fishing.  I attributed it to it being:

1. Dark
2. Cold
3. Raining
4. Three feet high waves
5. November
6. Have I mentioned the cold, dark and the rain?

On the way to the French, I noticed the rain had switched from a vertical fall to be a horizontal-skip-over-the-hood of the truck.  Art may have been right with the other fishermen knowing something we did not; or it could have been that they are simply not "hardcore."  The outing ended like most fishing trip as of late - our lines snagged and snapped and not a single fish was caught.  It was grand outing and to be witness to the grand scale of things on the Lake - being mere feet from crashing waves of 35 degree water is enough for me.

Back at the house, Art and I got to work building a fire.  The storm had passed by Proctor by the time we made it back to the house; there was no wind, either.  I only mention building the fire because it turned out to a fantastic fire that created coals that were still glowing more than 24 hours later.  There was not a scrap of lumber or log in the yard that was safe from the possible action of being tossed into the flames.  Spruce logs, old oars, birch plywood, particle board pieces, pine, oak, cherry and walnut pieces - all were burned.

I ran into Andy on Friday at the University - we agreed that hitting the French again would be a grand idea.  Again, when we arrived that evening it was cold, dark and raining.  The waves were just as high this time, too.  With rain gear on and a new rig-setup, I gave it my best.  But, again, no fish.  We did a sort of adhoc debriefing - we came to the conclusion that the lake was simply too violent for fish to remain within casting distance.  They would either have moved into the mouth of the French - where it is illegal to fish, or out further into deeper waters to escape the churn.