An Easter Trip to Wayne Kirch WMA

Anglers who live in the southwest desert, like me, understand that fishing adventures take some planning and a lot of driving. While it is true that warmwater fisheries (home to bass, crappie, perch, and other “spiny-ray” fish) can be found closer to our southwest urban cities than coldwater fisheries (home to salmon, trout, and char), it is also true that water in general is very scarce in the arid southwest. We southwest trout anglers will drive hundreds of miles to reach our trout streams and reservoirs. Many of the reservoirs that straddle the 5,000-to-6,000-foot elevation can support both warm and coldwater species, which can be convenient. The reservoirs of Wayne Kirch Wildlife Management Area (Kirch) are such reservoirs. Spring and fall are great times to pursue Rainbow trout, while the summer is best for the Black bass. If you would like to know more about Kirch you might select my “Wayne Kirch” blog category, or just take a look at my Dacey Reservoir, Sunnyside (Wayne Kirch WMA).

My last meaningful adventure was with my friend Bill on the California Delta casting to Striped bass (or at least to where we thought the Stripers might be). Fishing off a boat in a coastal estuary is terrific adventure in the pursuit of large fish, but it is also a social event. It is far easier to hold a conversation with your buddy on a boat than it is floating around in separate tubes or kayaks, or even hop-scotching up and down a trout stream. This trip to Kirch was another solo trip, designed for solitude with nature and the Lord.

While the ice was off most of the reservoirs and the weather was decent, the March winds seemed relentless this year. It was probably my impatience to get some angling time that made it seem unusually windy all month long. Anyone who has floated a high desert reservoir in a tube knows that when the wind reaches more that 15 m.p.h. the kick paddling and rowing (if your tube or pontoon has oars) gets to be a constant effort. Men my age and older typically do not have the strength and stamina of anglers in their 40s or even 50s, so we try to avoid those windy days.

This past Wednesday and Thursday the winds at Kirch were forecast to be below 10 m.p.h., and so that was it. It was time to get out of Dodge, as they say.

My original thought was to fish Kirch on Wednesday, and then lodge overnight in Ely, NV so that I could fish Comins Reservoir on Thursday. But the proximity to the Easter events of Holy (Maundy) Thursday through Easter Sunday caused me to revise the plan into a simple day trip; a round trip of about 365 miles for four-to-five hours of angling. Crazy, huh?!

I was hoping Dacey Reservoir would be clear of floating dead plant matter. The water plants grow thick in the shallow reservoirs, and they die off under the winter ice only to create a flotsam of decaying matter in the early spring. Dacey is closed to motorboats until August 1st, so the reservoir does not receive the benefit of outboard motors pushing aside the weeds to make way for tube fisherman to reach open water. Unfortunately, it was jammed up and impassable on this late-March trip, so I decided to give Adams-McGill a try.

When I arrived at Adams-McGill I found a California guy who was poaching off the impoundment with a worm. He was traveling up to Idaho but had passed by Kirch several times before and got curious about the fishing. He was honest and apologetic about the poaching, which was refreshing. He did say he had seen several trout near the riprap, and when I asked about their size he said one-to-two pounds. That sounded OK to me, so I started to set up my Savage Gear float tube.

While doing those chores, a couple and their yellow Labrador drove up. They were from Prescott, AZ, running through the Nevada backcountry. Their names were Kit and Robin, and they seemed to be about my age. Talking with them I learned that Kit was one of several nicknames for Christopher, and that the dog was named Val. Then we joked about why they neglected to name the dog Pooh.

Within 100 yards of the boat launch I hooked and landed a lovely 18-inch Rainbow weighing maybe 2.5 pounds. Fifteen minutes later I hooked another trout, likely smaller than the first, but it became a long-distance-release (LDR) statistic. I was throwing my favorite damsel nymph pattern with my 9-foot, 7-weight rod. However, the next hour was a blank… no strikes at all. So, I decided to drive down a couple miles to give Cold Springs Reservoir a good try.

When I arrived at Cold Springs there were two fly-anglers on the reservoir. One was just extracting himself from the reservoir and his Fish Cat float tube. His buddy was still fishing the reservoir on a framed pontoon boat. I was able to chat with the Fish Cat angler for a while. His name was Mark as well, and a life-long resident of Las Vegas. I recognized his family name as one I was familiar with. He was a graduate of Las Vegas High School at a time when there were but five or six high schools in all of Las Vegas. He said the fishing had been slow for them and added that it was usually rather good (this I knew).

We said our goodbyes, and I launched the tube and headed up the reservoir’s eastern edge which I have found productive in the past. I was still casting the 7-weight, although I decided to switch from my favorite damsel nymph to a leech pattern. I brought a 5-weight too, but opted for the heavier line for my weighted, early-spring flies. Despite Mark’s experience, I was able to hook into eight trout in a couple hours, landing five of them. The two largest were about 16 and 14 inches, and the other three were around 12 inches. I will take trout in the fourteen-to-sixteen-inch range all day… they fight hard and are quite acrobatic. Although I did not ask Mark, his flyrod looked to be rigged with a floating line which indicates he was probably using a strike indicator or dry fly with a dropper nymph drifted below. Those of you who are familiar with my preference may remember that I usually fish reservoirs with full-sink lines using stripping actions to give my fly movement that often attracts fish. This “action” is helpful when the water is a little murky or discolored from the changing seasons or runoff.

It was a fine trip, and I did spend a lot of time in fellowship with the Lord, who always travels with me.

After I returned home, one of the news networks aired a show about the death of Jesus on the cross. For good reason, I am always skeptical of networks airing their version of Christianity during the Christmas and Easter seasons. But I watched the first fifteen minutes anyway.

It seems a Christian forensic medical doctor decided to attempt to determine the medical cause of Jesus’ death, even though there is no body after 2000 years. He primarily relied upon Gospel testimony and his feeble attempts to simulate the torture of Jesus using volunteers who agreed to more “humane” torture methods. The whole thing quickly became silly to me, and being analytical the most relevant question was not “how” did Jesus die, but “why” he died. When my young daughter asked me what I thought Jesus died from, I told her it was from love.

The witnesses writing in the Bible tell us that Jesus was God Incarnate; Jesus was both God and man. As God he was able to live the perfect, sinless life as a man. His life was blameless. Jesus himself all but said he was God, and Scripture affirms this. Jesus did, after all, perform many miracles in the three years of his ministry, not the least of which were bringing several dead people back to life. If Jesus wanted to, he could have saved himself from a tortured death on the cross. So why didn’t he?

Man cannot save himself from sin. Despite the Old Testament law, there is no sacrifice man could make to receive God’s forgiveness for his sin. Sin separates us from God, and we can do nothing to fix that fatal flaw. The Lord knew this when he created us. It was not a surprise to Him that we are unable to keep His law, his commands as handed down through Moses. He knew before he ever created us that something supernatural would be needed to reconcile man to God. From the beginning, Scripture tells us the purpose of the law was to show our inability to save ourselves, and thus God’s plan for our salvation through Jesus. God knew Jesus would be placed into this world not only to be punished on the cross as payment for the sins of all humanity (he was the only perfect sacrifice), but that His resurrection would give mankind hope that we too can be reunited with God after our earthly death. The Scriptures speak to this Heavenly Sacrifice, and Jesus himself told his disciples that He alone is the pathway to truth and life. Here are a smattering of verses that describe this so much better than I can:

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 15:13

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:10

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

John 3:16-17

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:31

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6

But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Hebrews 1:2-3

So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Hebrews 9:2

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Matthew 20:28

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

1 Peter 2:24

For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

John 6:38

Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

John 10:22-39

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:21-26

Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

Revelation 1:4-6

My Easter hope is that you know the love of Jesus. Remember that we love because God loved us first.