End of Trout Season

We both took the last weekend of trout season off from work, including Monday. Joe got to start his weekend on Friday afternoon. He fished Apple Creek in rain and came home with 2 salmon, about 22". We fully intended to fish the rest of weekend, so I watched a YouTube video to fillet the fish, which took a fraction of space in the freezer.
The weekend forecast didn't look the best. Saturday being the nicest day, we took a small road trip. Of course, we had to fish a little on the road. We didn't catch a big one, but the fall color was beautiful.

Lake of the Clouds... it had been a while. We did some rock picking on the beach, but mostly watched our changing skies with dramatic clouds. We were really hoping for the sky to clear at night to be able to see northern lights. We ended up staying up past midnight at the lakeshore close to home, just as the thin cloud cover moved in. Oh well.

Sunday we went back to Apple Creek. It was rather quiet in the woods. Fish were not very active, though we saw a few underwater. The only good size fish we caught was my brown trout, which probably came upstream to spawn. I let it go after the picture was taken. You can tell the fish is still alive!

On our way home after fishing, we stopped to try a new BBQ smoke house. Everything was very tasty.... we'll have to introduce it to our friends. After this treat though, we worked hard at home, finishing painting the rest of house, at least as high as we could reach. Only because it didn't rain as predicted. Phew.

Monday, the last day of trout season, was stormy all day. Thunder and heavy rain on and off. We needed a pick-me-up, so I made an oven-baked pancake with wild apples for breakfast. We kept checking the hourly weather forecast, hoping to go out fishing one last time later in the day. We did drive to check out the river at 5pm, but the water level was too high to fish or even access at some areas. So ended another season. We must say it was a pretty good season.