Gone Fishin'

One of my favorite things about Wyoming is fishing.  I know there are plenty of places to fish right here in Vancouver, but there's just something about fishing in Star Valley.  Julia announced that this was the year she was "going to catch a fish all by herself".  She set her mind to it, and got to work:

 

As if fishing weren't exciting enough, we spent  most of our morning keeping an eye on the cattle in the field.  We had previously been warned that the bull was NOT very friendly.

And Julia found success: 

Not a bad first catch for Julia:

The part of the morning I don't have pictures of is the story of the two that got away: Rocky and Bobert.  Julia had another fish on the line, and had almost reeled it completely in, when the rocks (or large pieces of cement) on the side of the river sliced right through her line.  That was the story of Rocky - the first "one that got away"!  Then there was Bobert....poor fish that she hooked...he also took ahold of the line and broke it against the rocks.  We spent the next 45 minutes watching her bobber "swim" around the river.  We had the crazy idea that if we could catch the bobber with another line, we might be able to reel Bobert into the shore.  We were finally successful in catching the bobber with our other pole, but we only managed to retrieve the bobber, NOT Bobert.  Poor Julia...Bobert is still swimming free in the Salt River - the story of the second "one that got away"!

The second day, all four of us went fishing.  It was 32 degrees out when we began; there was ice on the cattle gate we climbed over.  The kids were both freezing because they didn't have gloves (or ear warmers like their dad).  It's not that it stays cold all day in Wyoming in the summer, it just starts that way.  It was over 80 that afternoon; but the morning was definitely a heavy jacket, long underwear, and gloves kind of a morning.  Anyway, Jonathan caught a normal sized trout....and I caught a "monster" fish.  I was really surprised to pull in a 21 inch cutthroat in such a shallow area of the river.  I was thrilled to break my all-time fishing record.  It weighed over 2 pounds!

And, yes, I too have stories of the others that got away.  Both were seen by my family, so they can back me up.  One was just a big as the one in the picture above, so it was disappointing to have reeled it up 5 feet onto the shore only to have it flop its way back into the river.  Someone thought it was funny to show size comparison by shoving one fish inside my Monster.

We went fishing for a third day, and Julia found success again:

 She's so funny because she is not afraid to bait her own hook, hold her fish (pet it even..and the worms who became her "friends"), gut her fish, stick fingers in its gills, etc. On the other hand, my son was gagging and making all kinds of faces while baiting his hook. If he lost a worm, he would wait until someone else also needed a worm because there was NO WAY in the world that he was going to rip one of those large worms in half to bait his hook. Funny how two kids raised in the same home can be so different.

Here's the picture of our 3rd morning fishing: 

Everyone is holding their own fish. As a family, we caught 3 Brookie, 2 Brown, and 2 Cutthroat Trout ranging from 11-13 inches. You will notice that I am not in the picture.....I failed miserably that morning. Julia said, "Mom, you didn't catch any fish because you don't know how to catch puny fish....you only know how to catch HUGE fish, and there just weren't any today!" She's cute, but I really didn't have a good day (or evening) that day. I think I only had two or three nibbles in the entire 5 hours we fished that morning.

We went back in the evening, which only proved successful for Jonathan and Julia who caught a fish together.  That fish was named Friendly by Julia because she and her dad had to work together to catch it.  They had been fishing side-by-side when it was caught.  Jourdan and I spent the whole night without a nibble.  As everyone was packing up to leave, I threw in my line one more time.  I got a nibble as everyone was picking up the gear.  Jonathan told me it was time to go..I told him that I just had my first nibble of the night, and I needed to see this cast through until I could reel it back in....slowly.  I managed to catch another huge cutthroat.  Julia named it Gigantor.  It was 18 inches long.

And another creepy stuffed fish photo.  This one is Friendly inside Gigantor. 

We had a great time fishing.  Everyone caught something this year, which is better than usual.  Needless to say,we ate a lot of fish during our trip.  We gave most of them away, however, because Monster was so huge it fed us for two meals.