Browsing “Fishing”

Recently Zipcar reached out and offered me a credit so that I could try out their service and write about it here on the blog. As somebody who owns a car and hasn’t ever considered joining a carshare, I admit I was initially lukewarm to the idea. But then it hit me: fishing! Sure if you don’t own a vehicle being a Zipcar member offers a simple and quick way to essentially rent a car short-term (and to tread lightly while you’re at it) but if you do own a vehicle that’s a little on the… well… gutless side and you have some heavy lifting/moving to do or a destination that’s at the end of a steep dirt road then they have small trucks and SUVs in their fleet. So I took them up on the offer.

And of course I don’t go fishing by myself, so I brought along my friends Suede Peterson and musician Rob Butterfield. This week I’m sharing five parts of the Zipcar fishing adventure that we went on.

In this fourth part I want to share something that I didn’t know existed until a couple years back. I made the discovery late one night while searching the shallow water of the shoreline for a toad that I thought I heard calling. Freshwater crayfish!!! Here’s Rob holding one that we caught…

In the past we’ve caught ones at this lake that were about five times this size, like tiny lobsters! We gathered up a huge potful of them and cooked them up and ate them, as a matter of fact. My wife thought they tasted like mud but I thought they were delicious. If you do a Google image search for freshwater crayfish you’ll either get very frightened by what you find or very excited depending on how much you like shellfish or similarly dislike insecty type things in the water. Jones Lake is full of these things.

Here’s what happened shortly after the above photo was taken. Rob learns the hard way how not to hold a crayfish…

Stay tuned tomorrow when I reveal whether or not we caught any fish on our adventure!

If you’re thinking about signing up for Zipcar we’ve got a special V.I.A. deal only available to our readers: get $75 in free driving credit by signing up at Zipcar.com and entering the code: VIA2010. You’re welcome!

Nope, it’s not the Lotto 649 growing and growing, it’s those pesky and glorious sockeye salmon making their way up the Mighty Fraser River this year! Up from a concerning 1.5 million in last year’s run, the first estimate was 25 million, then it was 30 million, and now it’s climbed to 34 freakin’ million. Take it easy, fish! Wowzers.

Recently Zipcar reached out and offered me a credit so that I could try out their service and write about it here on the blog. As somebody who owns a car and hasn’t ever considered joining a carshare, I admit I was initially lukewarm to the idea. But then it hit me: fishing! Sure if you don’t own a vehicle being a Zipcar member offers a simple and quick way to essentially rent a car short-term (and to tread lightly while you’re at it) but if you do own a vehicle that’s a little on the… well… gutless side and you have some heavy lifting/moving to do or a destination that’s at the end of a steep dirt road then they have small trucks and SUVs in their fleet. So I took them up on the offer.

And of course I don’t go fishing by myself, so I brought along my friends Suede Peterson and musician Rob Butterfield. This week I’m sharing five parts of the Zipcar fishing adventure that we went on.

In this third part I want to share the beauty of the destination that my gutless little car would never make it to: Jones Lake! I struggled with whether or not I should actually share the name of the spot with you because there is an unwritten code about blowing up incredibly precious spots like this, but I figure if you’re inclined enough to visit Jones Lake (which is technically called Wahleach Lake) and you have the means and the time to go all the way out there, then you’ll probably appreciate it’s splendor. Plus there’s a massive sign on Highway 1 between Chilliwack and Hope that says “JONES LAKE” that you can’t miss, so it’s not exactly the biggest secret in the world.

The lake is (obviously) super beautiful. It’s also (not-so-obviously) a partially man-made lake/reservoir that is managed by BC Hydro and is constantly producing electricity through it’s powerhouse. This lake most likely helps power the computer you’re reading this on right now! HERE is a technical PDF that has some of it’s history.

The above photo was taken around the halfway point to the end of the lake. This photo below was taken at the very end of the road. Literally. There used to be a bridge going across this skinny part of the lake and you can see what remains of it. Suede Peterson here is standing on one of the logs that used to stretch across the water, stay tuned to the next two parts to see if he (we) caught anything.

If you’re thinking about signing up for Zipcar we’ve got a special V.I.A. deal only available to our readers: get $75 in free driving credit by signing up at Zipcar.com and entering the code: VIA2010. You’re welcome!

Recently Zipcar reached out and offered me a credit so that I could try out their service and write about it here on the blog. As somebody who owns a car and hasn’t ever considered joining a carshare, I admit I was initially lukewarm to the idea. But then it hit me: fishing! Sure if you don’t own a vehicle being a Zipcar member offers a simple and quick way to essentially rent a car short-term (and to tread lightly while you’re at it) but if you do own a vehicle that’s a little on the… well… gutless side and you have some heavy lifting/moving to do or a destination that’s at the end of a steep dirt road then they have small trucks and SUVs in their fleet. So I took them up on the offer.

And of course I don’t go fishing by myself, so I brought along my friends Suede Peterson and musician Rob Butterfield. This week I’m sharing five parts of the Zipcar fishing adventure that we went on.

In this second part I wanted you to see two photos from the road on the way to the lake. This one of the bait fridge at the Yellow Barn Fruit Stand where we picked up lunch and worms (the lunch didn’t come from this fridge)…

And I also wanted to share this shot of some “litter” that we found in the middle of the dirt road near the lake. This is what is known as the Point Of No Return, folks. It’s the point in the trip where the faint of heart might decide to turn back because they found a rather hefty pile of spent bullets on the road. It’s the point in the trip where even the most seasoned of bushwhacking veterans might notice that those aluminum coloured ones are, in fact, shells from a handgun and that while shooting a shotgun or any other sort of hunting rifle in the middle of nowhere is one thing (and is actually perfectly legal) shooting a handgun anywhere in this country aside from a shooting range is another. Not only is it illegal but it’s also a total lunatic move, but we kept going because we love fishing. And as we only report good news on this web site you don’t need to worry about part 3 of these fishing posts to contain a story about us fighting a handgun wielding lunatic… so stay tuned for more from our awesome adventure tomorrow!

If you’re thinking about signing up for Zipcar we’ve got a special V.I.A. deal only available to our readers: get $75 in free driving credit by signing up at Zipcar.com and entering the code: VIA2010. You’re welcome!

Bummer news about that 25 million sockeye salmon I TOLD YOU were heading up the Mighty Fraser to spawn this year: the estimate is actually now 30 MILLION. Wait, that’s not bummer news.

Recently Zipcar reached out and offered me a credit so that I could try out their service and write about it here on the blog. As somebody who owns a car and hasn’t ever considered joining a carshare, I admit I was initially lukewarm to the idea. But then it hit me: fishing! Sure if you don’t own a vehicle being a Zipcar member offers a simple and quick way to essentially rent a car short-term (and to tread lightly while you’re at it) but if you do own a vehicle that’s a little on the… well… gutless side and you have some heavy lifting/moving to do or a destination that’s at the end of a steep dirt road then they have small trucks and SUVs in their fleet. So I took them up on the offer.

And of course I don’t go fishing by myself, so I brought along my friends Suede Peterson and musician Rob Butterfield. This week I’m sharing five parts of the Zipcar fishing adventure that we went on.

In this first part I’m introducing you to the whip: Coray (all Zipcars have human names) is an almost new Honda CR-V that lives at Commercial and 11th, and in a word I would describe the actual experience of driving him as sweet.

Essentials about to be loaded. Yes that’s a roll of emergency toilet paper and no that’s not an actual rifle, it’s a bb gun.

Coray looking pretty at a roadside fruitstand, halfway to the lake.
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Last year, around the time that around 10 million sockeye salmon apparently went missing from the Fraser River, David Christian and I did an interview with David Suzuki for SBC Skateboard magazine (here’s the POST I made about the interview). One of the questions that I was excited to ask him was about the mysterious disappearance, and what he thought had happened. He told me that the sockeye are a true natural mystery, beyond anything we’ll ever be able to control or predict. He said that he had no idea why the stocks were low and that nobody would ever have the answer, that the public inquiry into it would provide next to no insight on the matter.

I imagine that in Doctor Suzuki’s life he’s had many I-Told-You-So moments, and he’s right in the middle of one right now as a whopping 25 million sockeye (as opposed to the 1.5 million last year) are in the middle of returning to the Fraser in an attempt to get back to the place where they were born where – if they make it there – they will spawn and then die in their natural cycle of life.

25 million sockeye salmon. More sockeye salmon than have returned since 1913. So many sockeye salmon that scientists are now worried that commercial fishermen won’t be able to catch enough of them and there will end up being too many in the river, that it will virtually become blocked from many of them making their way up. That’s a good problem if I’ve ever heard of one.

HERE is a more in-depth/expert piece from CBC. This is really, really, really awesome.

Did you know that during each Father’s Day weekend in BC every single person in the province is granted a free license to go fishing in any of the tens of thousands of lakes that are here? It’s true. Today is the last day of the 10th annual 2010 Family Fishing Weekend and if you manage to get a line in the water you can thank the BC Government for the good times.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE BROCHURE BEFORE YOU GO FISHING TODAY

Of course it’s a gift but it’s mostly done in order to get people interested in fishing, to teach folks the rules of fishing and to give them a look at what’s being done to preserve, enhance and create fish habitat. I personally try to take advantage of our freshwater lakes as often as I can in the summer and I use this weekend as a way to get in my first day of fishing for the year before I get my actual license!

If you managed to get out and do some fishing this weekend please e-mail me a photo of the fish you caught and I’ll post it later in the week.

If you don’t know Ali Milner and her music you do now. At 19 years old she is already a sort of crafty veteran of singing and songwriting.  Ali just released her second c.d and we got a chance to shoot a video for her in the deep woods of Squamish B.C and North Vancouver.  It was a blast and Ali truly knocked it out of the park.  Even in the rainy cold environment and us making her play the track at double speed she kept her composure and pretty much nailed every take.  Today is the day this video goes live.  Please feel free to embed it/email it to friends/facebook it etc.  Enjoy

Ali Milner I Can’t Wait Forever Music Video from Deer Head on Vimeo.

I think Fall gets a bad rap because it follows summer and is before winter… Not a good placing. Spring gets a mulligan because it follows the nastiness of winter and is before the best time… but Fall, it seems destined to lose.
On it’s own, the beginning of Fall is legendary. Sometimes with sunny crisp mornings, quiet skies… a good time for thinking and one of my favorite things, walking through the woods.

One of my favorite places to go in the Fall is Alice Lake. Located on that new awesome highway five minutes past Squamish, it’s a great place to head up to on a day like today.
In the summer, Alice Lake is a hive of activity, with camping and lots of day trippers. In the fall, it is a quiet place to go and bask in nature only 45 minutes from Vancouver.

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Just had my annual reminder….Vancouver Island is Awesome too!!

I’m going to try to take as many photos of fish in Vancouver as I possibly can and drop them on you as often as I can here. Which means I might actually get you one a month over the summer. Here’s one I got of two little salmon minnows at a place me n’ Arlo just won’t stop talking about, Capilano River Park.