Conconully 2010 – Trip Report

I think I may have had the only camera this year, so I better write the report on this year’s fishing.

Stats:

- June 2 – June 7, 2010

- Weather: mixed rain and sun.  Two rainy days (about 50 degrees), three dry days (about 65 degrees)

- Attendees: Chief (old Mike), Mike (young Chief), Dave, Jimmy, LeeRoy, Ken, Brian, Ben, Zac, Waylon, Mark, Grant, Fritz and Peter.

- Location: Conconully Resort, cabins 1 (five nights), 2 (four nights) and 4 (two nights)

Some of my best fishing this year was this cap that I found floating on the end of the upper lake, and we fished it out with a net – what a prize!  Didn’t fight much though.

Fritz got off to an exciting start.  There was some controversy about theory versus practice in whether both holes in the transom should be plugged.  Theory said one, practice said two as we came back out to the boat an hour after launching and found this –

Between the electric sump pump, Mark manually pumping, and Fritz bailing with a coffee can, soon all was recovered to the point where it could be temporarily loaded back onto the trailer for in-depth transom hole theory analysis.

However, soon the good skipper Fritz had Mark and me out fishing…

And enjoyed some catch as well…

Most fish were like this one, about 12 or 13”, but some bigger ones were being caught as well by various members of the party.

LeeRoy claims to have caught one in record territory.  However, he was fishing with a Conconully first-timer friend, Ken.

LeeRoy tells us that Ken decided to make a fast run to a different fishing spot, but overlooked the detail of bringing in the stringer with LeeRoy’s record fish prior to taking off.  I think that some of LeeRoy’s thoughts about this matter aren’t exactly what he was taught about forgiveness at Messiah Lutheran Church.

Grant took the big-fish lead from the Chief along the way…

With Dave scoring a similar size fish a little later.

Here’s Mark with a nice one…

In the end, Ben won the 2010 Big-Fish award with an official measurement of 16 ½”, although claims are that it was larger prior to cleaning and sitting in the cooler for a while waiting for official measurement…

Chief made an elaborate burl award this year, which must have taken many hours – very nice work…

There was a lot of discussion about what year the Conconully Gang was established.  I think it was decided that it was about ’87 or ’88.  However, most discussions about this start with something like “what year was it that old <expletive>-head did <something stupid>?”  And then the conversation drifts away talking about that, and before coming to a conclusion drifts back to discussions of women’s anatomy, or if there’s more Kokanee beer in the cooler.

Speaking of Kokanee, we caught a couple of them this year – most interesting fish – landlocked sockeye salmon.

Another new-comer this year was Mark’s daughter’s boyfriend, Waylon.  Waylon is a senior brew master at:   and greatly endeared himself to the troops via two kegs of Elysian beer that he brought and served.

However, in spite of the fact that he knows good beer, he isn’t too proud to “enjoy” more common beers as well…

We did some eating a new place in town – “Double D’s.”  However we were first discouraged to find that not only is it “Lucky D’s,” the “D” doesn’t even refer to bra size at all.  Good food though.

While we were there, the topic of karaoke came up, and we discovered that Waylon does a fine rendition of Johnny Cash songs…

We still enjoyed the Sit-N-Bull though.  Dave Carpenter joined us one night…

On one of the days where it was a little wet, some of the guys had to visit “Randy’s” to check out the stock in Okanokan..

The fishing was a little slow at times compared to some other years, but with the considerable help of Dave’s “fishing machine” Lund with its talented sailors, and his smoker, each of us was sent home with a nice heavy gallon-size bag of fish, like this…

The beauty of the Conconully area stays the same…

Fritz tells me that deer aren’t all that easy to get, but we could have jumped out of the truck with a baseball bat and got one of these bucks (there were three) beside the road…

And of course we enjoyed our deck time.  Here, I think Fritz has just mentioned something about fine Chinese products, or cut one, I’m not sure…

We finally had to load up the boats and leave…

Hopefully we will all be well and see each other (plus Critter), here next year…

Cheers,

            Brian