Taking the kids!

Run off is here and with that lots of yard work, gardening, and preparing for the Salmon fly hatch. It is also when I have time to take my kids fishing. There are lots of options around Missoula for getting the kids into fish. There are many off the grid places for fishing when the major waters turn to chocolate. Today I opted for a stocked borrow bit along I-90 and being a hot Saturday It was loaded with every type of fisher you could imagine. The bobber and worm crowd was in the majority and I attempted to play that game with my 7 and 9 year old daughters. We had some bites but we got there late for the morning bite and the trout were being very stingy. The bobbers plunged a few times but the they were all master worm pluckers and got away with the worm each time. Today was the first time my girls put in a serious amount of time fishing. After a few hours of try to catch stupid stocked trout and failing miserably I decided to find the shallows and fish for perch so they would catch something. Well it paid off. The little perch were stealing worms let and right and the kids were hell bent on catching them. I finally saw the "eye of the tiger" in my girls and what I thought would be a 3-4 hour fishing trip that was half picnic turned into 7 1/2 hours of full on fishing. I kept my eyes out for big cruising Largemouth that I knew lurked in this pond. I saw a couple and I rigged one of the 6 rods in the boat with a rubber worm. There were a few willing participants and boy do I wish I had video of the girl's faces trying to fight and land they fish. I did get a few shots with camera though.

Claire got to reel in the first one and it was quite the battle. She could barely hold on to the rod but in the end she hung in there and the fish cooperated and came to the net.



Claire could not hold this fish up but I got a shot of Hannah trying to do it.



Hannah got to bring in the next one. Which was a little easier to handle and she posed nicely with it.



After a day like today I feel like I can take them on a semi serious fishing trip and can't wait to do it.

I have one regret as I write this. I should have gotten a picture of a quarter next to the one bite perch fillets that I needed a scalpel to fillet and took 45 seconds to cook. Oh well, The blog thing is new to me and hopefully I will be the wiser the next time. It also reminded me of all those little Bluegill and Crappie I used to insist on keeping when I was little. My Dad is a saint for cleaning all those fish for a great many years. It sure was great to come home way after dinner time and say sorry dear we were fishing and just couldn't leave. I think Hannah would have fished till dark if I had let her.