Cast and Blast Trips

 

usbackroads destination--Cast and Blast Destinations.

Heaven must be stuck in the month of October.  October is the perfect month for outdoor activities.  Days tend to be warm and sunny, while night temperatures always bring frost to the landscape in the morning.  Fish can sense the changing of the seasons and start feeding to lay in fat reserves for the long winter ahead.  Hunting seasons start opening in September and start hitting full swing in October.  Even for astronomy October is the perfect month with the skies of summer still on display and in the early morning the Orion runs high in the sky.

So many things to do so little time in October.  Early October is our time for our cast and blast trip.  We look for locations that offer fishing in the morning and bird hunting in the afternoon.  For Bugaboo this is perfect allowing him to sleep in the morning while we are fishing.  I use to take a telescope along on these trips, but found that going 24 hours a day was just too much fun!!

In past years we have camped at Blue Lake.    However, this year we found a special lake with only one campsite.  So on the long drive from Wenatchee we were on pins and needles hoping that no one else would be camped in our special spot.  The backup plan was Blue Lake.

 

Fortunately, when we arrived at the lake the camping spot was vacant and we promptly claimed it and started unpacking the tent trailer.  The weather forecast called for rain in eastern Washington.  A highly unusual event for us.  The forecast did not disappoint.  It rained for the better part of a day and night.  Wenatchee even set a record for October with a quarter inch of rain.

The fishing was good for 18 inch trout.  Well, one day the fish were stand-offish, but most times they provided plenty of entertainment.  Just one size of trout in the lake.  We tried to catch larger fish and would have settled for smaller, but it seems everything was 18 inches if it was a trout.  The highlight was several large bluegills which found their way onto the barbeque for dinner.   That might have been enough to convert me to a warm water fly fisherman.

We hunted for quail and chuker.  Bugaboo did find five rooster pheasants that he pointed and they flew right past Terry.  Unfortunately, pheasant season is still three weeks away.  I pulled out the hunting regulations and showed Bugaboo, the hunting dates for pheasants but he refused to read them.  He just gave me a dirty look.  We never did fire the shotguns this trip.  We went on several nice long hikes but we should have left the guns at home and taken the camera instead.  Bugaboo did find one dead hungarian partridge.  Even he seemed disappointed in the hunting.

Well, the fishing was good.  The hiking was great.  And except for that day of rain the weather was fairly decent.  The company was outstanding and the wine and food added to another great cast and blast trip.  Even though blasting was missing.

More October trips coming soon.  Oh, in the fire refresher training the Weather Service jokingly predicted that fire season would start October 25th and end on October 28th.  Well, this rainfall marked the season ending event for fire season.  It looks like a cold and snowy winter is in the cards for eastern Washington.  So we are going to be southwest bound in December.