Had a great time with great weather for the opener. My dad (Saturday was his b-day) and I took my two oldest (Ella 8 and Aubrey 5) daughters to our local pond. First of course we had to stop and get powdered jelly-filled donuts, candy and drinks.
We got to the lake and deployed seal buggers. The girls trolled with a fly tied on to their spinning rod with a split shot to weight it down. I used a clear intermediate out the back of the boat. Black seal bugger, with a flo/pink small bead was the hottest fly. My dad sat between the kids and helped organize the fishing and snack situation.
We trolled for about 20 minutes before hooking our first fish, which was a big one that got away. Later I hooked a couple more big fish on my fly rod and let my oldest try and land them. She had a hard time knowing when to let go of the reel handle and broke 2 nice fish off. Later on she did manage to land a really decent fish on the fly-rod which I caught on video. Eventually the action steadied out and we probably landed 10 or 15 fish in the two hours we tried from 0700 to 0900 with several being pretty big.
The kids are big enough now to deploy their rods and to pull them out of the rod holder and reel in the fish. My oldest was even able to net a fish for her sister. They actually did the whole routine themselves: reeling in, netting, landing, bonking and everything. That fish ended up getting Aubrey 3rd place in the derby.
The local game club organizes a simple derby with a lot of great sponsorship at these ponds. They get a ton of prizes and really try hard to ensure that each kid who enters a fish gets a prize. I used to skip the derbies until a few years ago my oldest entered one and I saw the look in her eyes when she was waiting for her name to be called and realized that it was really exciting for them. This year was especially exciting because Ella won. She had the biggest fish of everyone there.
It was pretty funny when she got to the weigh in and was told that she was on top of the leader board. She stood there and watched each fish come in and get weighed to ensure that she stayed on top.
This was the kind of weekend that you dream about when you become a parent.
The pictures:
Powder donuts? Check.
On and running.
Kids and Grandpa.
One about to get released.
My nephew came down for a brief bit of trolling. He is two but really had a fun time. My girls went to the playground with his mom while we took him out.
He liked to pet them prior to release.
Me and the kids with the 1st and 3rd place fish. The winning fish was 7.0 lbs, and the 3rd placer was 5lb 13 oz.
)
Previous Topic
Index
