Carson woman goes fishing after bout with cancer

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It has been a tough two years for 71-year-old Carson City resident Joyce Lambert.

But when she got done with her latest battle, this time with cancer, she wanted to do just one thing.

Go fishing.

"She was just off the radiation, which burned out the cancer," husband Bob said. "Her first day out of rehab, I asked her where she wanted to go. There was a lot going on this weekend - the Rendezvous, Valhalla - but she said she wanted to go fishing."

So Bob and Joyce's son, Bill Violette, put her oxygen tank in the car and headed up into the Sierra to Hope Valley on Saturday, which was free fishing day in California and Nevada.

They ended up at Picketts Junction, where Highways 88 and 89 meet.

"It was a lot of work to get her chair down to the river," he said. "There's a little footpath, but encroached by brush. We just kind of powered it through."

After getting her set up by the river, the two men also started fishing.

It wasn't long before Joyce reeled in a three-pound rainbow trout. She caught two smaller fish to Bob's one.

"She killed them, knocked them dead," Bob said. "And she skunked us."

Joyce and Bob moved to Carson City from Topaz Lake after Joyce had a stroke just over two years ago.

"We moved to be closer to Carson-Tahoe Hospital," Bob said. "The stroke led to an aortic aneurysm and then she broke her hip."

Joyce's most recent battle has been with lung cancer.

The Lamberts have been married for 23 years.