I took a little “retreat” to my friend Karl’s
cabin-in-the-woods this weekend. A
little R&R for the soul J And while there I had a memorable experience. So, I am writing to you all today to tell
you all the tale of my first, and solo, fishing expedition! Ok, so it wasn’t so
much of an “expedition” per se, as it was fishing in a small creek (Grimes
Creek) down the hill from Karl’s place, but we’ll call it an expedition
nonetheless! So, on with the story…
I
purchased my first fishing license, ever, on Friday morning – which I plan to
frame when it expires. Karl took off
for Salt Lake City for the weekend to visit friends and family, and left me
with a fishing rod and reel all set for me to fish. How nice of my dear friend!
First thing Saturday morning I grabbed the fishing pole, my container of
yummy earthworms, and an empty cooler, and headed down to Boise for yoga and
then over to Lucky Peak Reservoir for some fishing! There were too many people at Lucky Peak, so I headed back up to
Grimes Creek. Besides, I wasn’t exactly
sure what I was doing, so I wanted as few people as possible witnessing my
screw ups!
So I
get to my spot, right next to the road, but across the creek from the main
road. I wrap on my first, but certainly
not last, cute little earthworm. Then I
looked at the reel…oh crap, how does this thing work??!! The last time I touched a rod and reel was
when I was about 10, fishing with grandpa Moulton, and I realize that I don’t
remember a darn thing! I find the
“on/off” switch and figure…hmmm, that should probably be in the “On” position
for fishing. Brilliant Colleen! Of course, that’s only part of what needs to
be done to cast out that line. I tried
everything – either the line went nowhere or half the reel spilled out in the
water. Hmm….big knots…love it!
Well,
that gave me plenty of opportunity to practice stringing a rod and putting on
sinkers, shot, and hooks. I get it all
on there and…oops…I didn’t put the line through the reel properly. Darn it all.. Ok, everything comes off
again. Take 3…got the line threaded
right, everything is on. Now, how do
you cast? By complete fluke, and maybe
a little intuition (trying to make myself feel better here can you tell?), I
make a perfect cast!! ….Right into the rocks on the bank of the opposite
shore. F*#k! (obscenities deleted for
the faint of heart)…I set everything down, put the reel in the “off” position
(now there’s thinkin’ for ya), and find a way across the stream. Being a rather “petite” person, currents are
a deadly force to be reckoned with, even if it is just a “creek”. And lucky me, I have an audience of a family
camping nearby. Unfortunately for them,
there was no slipping, falling, and small girl getting sucked downstream. I get to the other side, run down the road a
bit and into the rocks to free my poor worm and hook. As I toss them into the water down below I have the fleeting
thought of…”hmm. I wonder what the
chances are that a fish is going to grab that worm while I make my way back
across?”
Answer?
Very Good Chance. I get back to my spot
and there’s a fish on my line! Not
exactly the ideal way to catch your first fish…but hey, I’ll take it. I reel the sucker in, and realize I have no
CLUE what it is! No matter, I can look
it up later – I put it in the cooler with some water and tried my luck
again…and proceed to tangle the crap out of my line…again. Re-threading, etc…take 4!
Thankfully,
this is the last time I make an irreparable mess of my line, and shortly I
catch another fish about the same size as the first – about 9-10 inches
including tail. I lost another one
right at shore, but that’s ok with me…I’m having fun now! I’m also running through worms pretty quick. Then I catch the mother-of-the-day. Same species, and about 18-20 inches long,
and probably at least 3 times the size of the other two. She’s a beauty…whatever she is. I decide to end on a good note and pack it
up. I set the two smaller fish free and
toted the fish-of-the-day back up to the cabin. I try in vain to find a fish ID book at Karl’s, to make sure that
I didn’t catch anything I shouldn’t.
And Karl’s unreachable. Oh
well. With the number of these fish in
the creek I can’t imagine they are anything endangered. So now that I have the darn thing, what do I
do? I work out a plan on how to kill
the poor thing, because as you know, I’m not the biggest, burliest person in
the world and this is not the smallest fish in the world!
Anyway,
I’ll spare you the details in case any of you are snacking while reading this,
and suffice it to say that I successfully killed, gutted, and prepared the fish
for dinner. I ended up with 4
good-sized steaks, one of which I grilled on the barbecue that night. However, that was NOT the best tasting fish
in the world. But I was not going to
let that poor fish die in vain, so I worked my way through that steak. Turns out, after talking to Karl, it was
either a sucker or a whitefish, neither of which is too tasty. In fact, about the only thing you can do
with it is make fish soup…guess I need to learn how to make fish soup, because
I still have 3 steaks in Karl’s freezer to contend with!!
Well
that’s my story, hope you all enjoyed it!
I would send a picture of me holding the fish, but alas, no one was
there to witness the event. So you’re
just going to have to take my word for it ;)
Colleen