Girl's Turn

I now have 3 kids. Boy, girl, girl. Our newest is 7 weeks old, and my older daughter turns 3 in a few weeks. This afternoon I had the two oldest munchkins while Mom could get away with the baby and her mother. I chose to take them bank fishing at a friend's pond. This is the same location of my son's first trip a few years ago.

We started things off with a quick strategic nap on the ride out after lunch.




This pond always delivers and my daughter caught her first fish, a small shellcracker. She then proceeded to put all of us to shame with bream after bream on her snoopy rod. This is her fighting and holding her first fish.





My son lost interest and was "exploring" while she was slaying the fish. She was asking to hold the worms and playing with the fish in our bucket. Overall, I was very pleased with her enthusiasm, willingness to handle the fish, and skill with the rod. I did all the baiting, casting, and un-hooking, but she did the rest.

She also has my son's camera prowess, snapping this pic of me and our biggest bream, a nice shellcracker. They wanted to take this one home, but it was the only keeper we caught, so back into the pond it went.



Unlike my son, there were no potty training bribes involved with this trip.  But helping her go #1 out in the woods is definitely more challenging than him! 

I caught one bass and lost two others. I'm sure you'll see all 3 of us in a canoe this summer.

Quick Learner

Saturday night, Mack and I wrung our hands debating on our Sunday fishing excursion location, as we usually do. We settled on a familiar local flow that was running a little high. I was excited because I've never floated this entire section.  We were set to meet at the get out around 6 am to shuttle cars.

The blood red moon hung just over the horizon as we headed west. We launched around 7 am in stained swift water, both second guessing our decision and concerned it may be a tough day of fishing.

The early morning started with all the usual tactics (spinnerbait, rattletrap, lizard, swimbait, fluke, etc) and no bass to show. A few hours in, Mack anchored up near a deep hole and went for a few crappie with a small roadrunner. He caught one crappie and got broke off by a small bass.

We fished all morning with 2 small bass caught, mine was on a bettlespin with chartreuse curly tail, I think Mack's was on another roadrunner. We were banging the bank, checking every creek and eddy looking for the fish and were coming up short. I was starting to think I may not even get to pull out the camera! 

Finally, after mid-day we found one small creek flowing clear with a nice pool just up from the creek mouth. I caught a small bass on a smoke gray colored grub with black pepper flake, and Mack hooked but lost another decent bass on a tiny rebel crank.

Mack was beginning to think a finesse minnow presentation may be the ticket, and I was paying attention.

On the opposite bank, there was a large shallow stillwater channel behind an island. As soon as we entered the channel, Mack picked up a few redbreast and lost yet another bass on his minnow. I promptly tied on my 2.5" Rebel Minnow. I managed 4 bass and 6 crappie in this short channel between the minnow and smoke grub, including a 4 lber. Mack wasn't quite so lucky ...







I had my heartbreak moment as well, seeing a 5-6 lber strike my minnow, get hooked, and just as quickly get unhooked.

We picked up a few more small fish on our way down to the get out. This float had the most whitewater I've seen this year and was a pretty good trip, except for the incessant upstream wind!

Mack had the answers, I just put them in action.