First Fish with Kestrel

Upon arriving in Utah, the first order of business was to take my granddaughter fishing. She's not quite three years old, so we wanted someplace easy. Her dad works for someone who has a cabin up the Provo river area with a private pond on the property stocked with trout. Sounded like a good place to try. 

Beautiful drive up the canyons to the cabin, a short walk along the Provo River, and we arrived at a small pond with grassy banks...and huge fish! Trout 20" to well over 24" suspended, cruising, occasionally sipping something on the surface. Tossed out a hopper, in short order I watched one of the monster trout slowly rise, suck the fly in, then swim off as I set so hard I think 20 lb tippet would have broken. Yeah, a little overaggressive. Tied on a renegade, lots of looks, then another giant sucked it in. With a more measured set, he was hooked and I handed the rod to Kestrel. Having never fished before, I don't think she really understood what she was doing, but we helped her hold the rod and reel. Her mom got the net under the fish, and when I lifted the fish out of the net, Kestrel started screaming "No! No! No!" and hid behind her dad. So Jess kissed the fish and we returned it to the pond. 

Fat rainbow from a private pond

I was able to entice one more to the fly, and Jess missed one and broke one off, but Kestrel wanted nothing more to do with fishing. Next time we'll find someplace with small fish that won't terrify her.

Tied on lots of different flies, but could only entice a couple

On the walk back, I cast a hopper into the river, had a few 12-inch size lookers, then had a monster cutt slowly rise and take down the hopper. I got a solid set, but had a lot of line out and it swam right towards me faster than I could get the line in and it came unstuck. Dang! Wish I could have that one back, but there will always be another big one to find.