April Snow Storms

This mornings outing was to be short and sweet.  I had plans of fishing the Tunk hole for a few hours and then bugging out of the valley to pack up and make the drive home at a decent hour.  On the way to the Tunk hole I stopped at some familiar water that had looked neglected this morning.  The first drift through produced a 3/4 lb brown.  The  water looked mint and I just knew there had to be a decent fish in this deep hole.  The third drift through and my thoughts were realized with a nice 5 lb chrome hen.

Not wanting to get side tracked from my original game plan I released the pretty girl after a few pics and hiked back through the bush to my destination.  Often one location that fishes well one day can leave one scratching their head the next.  This is typical with fish on the move and today I found myself scratching my head.  To be quite honest I really wasn't all that surprised as this year has been nothing resembling consistent.  Before overstaying my welcome  I took the opportunity to hike a trail from Tunk down towards Sawdust.  I was curious to see if we had been busting our asses through the Brier patch from Hell for no other reason than being uneducated tourists.  This indeed proved to be the case as I effortlessly followed the manicured pressure treated wooden board walk down to the tail out of Sawdust.  Once again the Irony of it all surfaced and I had to laugh at myself.  The plan was to fish my way back to the truck and then hike out and make plans to head home.  Suicide owed me a fish.

This was fact and I was determined to pick something out of one of the emerald green pockets.  I pounded every piece of fishy looking water until it happened.  The float dropped and I set up on a 2 lb chrome missile that thought he was 10lbs.  It was nice to finally put something together down there.  Shortly after the release it started to snow.  I was a nice spring snow shower that was actually welcomed initially.  I continued my way out of Suicide and through the Brier patch to my next location.   After settling in a tremendous thunder boom rolled through the valley and the snow flakes increased from pea sized to Toonie sized gobs of wet powder.

The entire scene was surreal as I cast my float out into the wall of white.  The contrast between the deep fluorescent orange and the stark whiteness was impressive.  Snow was accumulating on my shoulders and hat brim in short order.  The Rainshadow was even getting a decent accumulation.  Random flashes of lightening began to surface and the thunder was almost immediate to follow.  A thunder snow storm...  By now I had overstayed my welcome so I carried on up and out of the river valley.  The accumulation on the roads wasn't more than a couple of inches but it was heavy, wet and very slippery.  I knew my ride home would be interesting.  As it turned out i had no idea just how interesting it would prove to be.  Some parts of the state had seen twice as much snow and the lack of snow plows  on the roads found many motorists in the ditch.  From Wellston to Sarnia I must have witnessed 30 or so places where someone was or had been in the ditch. At one point I had to make a 911 call for someone that was way down deep in a giant ditch  and almost out of site west of Midland.
 April snow storms.  I love to fish in them but could definitely do without the road time.