Fishing Thoughts

Our fishing trip yesterday was  exciting. I thought I would  share some of the reality of that nice peaceful evening with my son and Hope Puppy.

We got to our friends farm and unloaded the car and hiked out to the pond. It was hot in the sun but I found a nice shady spot to set up my chair. As I was getting settled, my son made his first cast out to the pond. A nice little "plunk" was followed by a great huge splash as Hope Puppy jumped in to retrieve the lure. Tony was yelling, "you are scaring the fish", I was hollering" don't hook my dog!" And Hope puppy was swimming like mad. But she finally heeded me in all the commotion and swam back to me, where she immediately soaked me as she shook herself off.

My son headed to the other side of the pond and I wet but laughing, got the worm on my hook and made a beautiful cast out in the middle of the pond. I settled back in my chair and pulled my book out as I sat in total contentment by the pond. Before very long my son had a small mouth bass on his line ... and I mean small! If you look close you can see it in his right hand.

By that time my line had drifted and it was time for me to reel in and cast back out. I drew my pole back, released and ...... cast right into the tree above me. Taking pity on me my son hiked back around the pond and helped me disentangle my line from the tree. As we worked on it, I tried telling him I was fishing for the tree trout but he was not buying it.

Finally we got the line out of the tree (minus hook, swivel and weights) and I put new hook and bait on my line and cast back out. In a little while I had a bite and as I reeled it in, I realized to my horror that I had hooked a salamander. As I shouted for my son, Hope Puppy was barking at the excitement and ... splash ... she was back in the pond. By then we were all yelling, My son at the dog, me calling for help and of course Hope barking in excitement. But finally, my son came over and took the poor salamander off the hook and I once again put fresh bait on my line and cast back into the pond.

I spent the rest of the time quietly reading my book and trying to keep my line in the middle of the pond where there was less chance of hooking another salamander. I only fished for tree trout one more time before we left. To wrap up our evening I threw the stick in the pond for Hope Puppy and she dove in after it. We spent a happy 15 minutes watching her chase he stick into the pond. Then we hiked back to the car and loaded the wet muddy dog, the tackle and gear into the car.

As I have thought about our evening I have to admit that it makes me smile. It was a lot of fun and you know I discovered something... tree trout are a lot easier to clean.

Just Connie