The Pond with the Scouts

The Scouts from the Rocky Reach Ward (my ward) and the Eastmont Ward (Rob's ward) went to the pond in Ellensburg to do a cleanup service project and an overnight camp.... along with some fishing!

The fishing was good. The boys and leaders were already there when I arrived. I hopped in my tube and fished for about 45 minutes and landed 3 or 4 nice fish. All rainbows. I caught them on one of my home-tied cone head green moal leeches. It was extra fun to catch them on a self-tied fly! I went back in and let one of the leaders take out my tube. He proceeded to catch 2 nice trout including a large brown that broke off the fly at the tube.

I then took out Layton Judd in a rowboat and had him fish the clouser minnow that I had tied as well. He landed 3 bows in about 30 minutes. It was a good time.

Final stats for the night: Tom - 3 or 4 trout. Rob - 1 trout (I fished more!) Dad - 0 trout (he was busy rowing and calling the scouts "lard butts" and saying things like, "Do you think I'm rowing this boat for fun!") Rick - 0 trout (not present, but would the statistics REALLY have been any different??)

FISH ON!

Some Fish for Me!

I went to the Stake Father and Son's Outing on Friday and Saturday at Ensign. I called a somewhat less active family with a son and joked that I needed to have a son to go to the outing. His mom said he wasn't planning on going. About 5 minutes after I hung up, the phone rang. It was the less active boy. He said he'd be happy to go along with me so I could go on the outing. I wasn't going to turn him down.

Fished Friday evening in the lake. Lots of takes, but with no room for a backcast or a hookset it was hard to get a strip set on the little planters. After several takes from the little guys I put another strip set on a take. Then the excess line quickly peeled off! Several jumps and runs later I landed a 19" bow from the lake. VERY healthy and VERY fiesty.

The next morning I took Mark and Emmett out. We got one little guy which Emmett landed and posed next to while I held it. It reminded me of a picture of Mark, Jon and myself at Grandpa Ed's fishing ponds where I was holding a fish, Jon was holding 2 fish, and Mark was pretending to hold a fish (which I assume Jon must have been holding). Like father, like son!

Yakima River was off color and very high. No takes in a few casts there.

FISH ON!

No Fish for You!

Dad and I took a Friday AM trip with Hannah in the backpack to try for some NCW rainbows. We didn't catch nor see a fish in the our main stream, but in the tributary that is still closed, we walked up along the edge and saw 30-40 steelhead paired off doing their spring thing. Hopefully that means that 4 years from now we'll have a more sizable steelhead return.

End of Report #1

Train up a child.....

Friday evening in the spring, sunny, calm, tired of working in the yard - Melinda, I think we need to "go to Wal-Mart". That is code for taking a quick trip to a little irrigation pond in a new housing development nearby that is somewhat near to Wal-Mart. The pond is right next to the road and in people's backyards. It takes up about 3 building lots, with grass all around it down to the water's edge. It is more like a park. A great place for a kid to learn how to cast a fly. And a couple years ago it was full of bass, so you can do a little more than cast. But no such luck tonight. Melinda learned to work her 3 weight, I caught a little bluegill, spooked a couple big fish that were next to the bank (guarding nests I would imagine), then Melinda pulled two bluegill out by herself just before dark. We'll have to come back with small flies and target the little guys. I know, three bluegill isn't much to write home about, but I promised myself I would keep a faithful record of all fishing trips, unlike Tom who I see hasn't posted his getting skunked on his last trip out......