Gave Round Valley a Visit

Forget Tilcon Lake. Hoped, last night, that maybe I could introduce my son to Oliver Round by ice fishing the lake after all, ironic as this would be, since we hoped to go in January. Last year, Matt and I fly fished when he was home on break. But I checked Round Valley Pond early this afternoon and most of it is open water. Since that's the case here, I don't believe for a moment Tilcon Lake has safe ice. Tilcon is about 20 feet deeper than Round Valley Pond. Tilcon also has a greater mean depth, its shorelines dropping almost immediately into deep water.

I came on over to shoot photos, but before I loaded my camera bag and tripod into the Honda, I checked on the mealworms in the fridge. Still alive. (So long as you keep them cold, they never seem to metamorphize into the black beetles they do become pretty quickly at room temperature.) I grabbed a bag of little marshmallows and a rod already rigged for the Valley. I had a couple of others rigged, too, but didn't care to complicate matters.

I set up to fish in a minute or so, and then began shooting nearby. Finally, I fetched my camera bag to begin an arduous walk from the Ranger Cover area towards the ramp. I trusted my rod and tackle bag to any strangers. Don't think I would have on a weekend. That's an expensive rod and reel, and so are the bag's contents. I also trusted that rod and reel to the trout. On one occasion in the past, a trout spooled my reel before I attended it, the bail open so the fish could take the bait, but the fish just sort of stopped running after all the line was out, so it didn't pull the outfit into the reservoir. Now I realize it wasn't really wise to trust it to the trout. Strangers? Less likely to take it.

But no trout hit.

I also hiked further back along Ranger Cove after I reeled my rig and stashed it in the Honda, surprised at the ice cover over there, though my photo doesn't do it much justice. I wore my hikers and felt surprised my feet never got cold. My Irish Setter pac boots never get swapped out for hikers when I ice fish, and these big boots are always warm, but I like my hikers here at the Valley, the way gravel and rock feels under them. Temperatures today down near 20 and the wind heavy, here we are well into March now, and out there alone by the reservoir, I didn't feel a trace of spring coming.

It would have been a good hour for a shiner rigged on a little Styrofoam for any possible lake trout, but I left the bucket home, though I could have turned left at U.S. 22 over to Round Valley Bait and Tackle. That's my only regret. I've had wonderful encounters with lakers in the past, and today really felt like a day for more, but with so little time to fish, I do doubt any would have hit, if any are in the shallows this late in the winter anyhow. Don't know. That's a good reason to have least tried.

I guess this is about all for winter until December. Very vigorous--and comfortable--occasion. I worked hard at getting good photos with my still-new camera, beginning with my 24mm Sigma Art lens, using the 70-200mm Nikon zoom for some, and then keeping with my 50mm Nikon. I got down on my belly in the snow on some occasions for close angles, but although I shot 101 photos, only a handful interest me very much. Shooting them was a lot of fun, though, and the more I do it, the more my collection of exceptions grows. Once the water level falls again for the work on the dams, there'll be some especially interesting opportunities. 

Ice formed inside a bend near the lower parking lot.

The back of Ranger Cove is frozen over.