A colorful beginning

Took the family fishing this morning at a new spot that a co-worker had recent success with. It was our first fishing trip this year and I reverted back to using the traditional bait: worms.

Last year it was too disappointing for the kids to see daddy catch no fish with the jig-head and other fake baits -- though they were never really asking why daddy didn't catch any fish last year. The only time I caught fish last year was when they weren't with me. "Fishing" was fun for them only because they got to go out and play.

I cast out the hooked worm for RyanC and had him hold fishing rod while I prepare my own fishing rod. Shortly afterwards, wife and AidanC wondered off to check out the playgrounds near-by -- I suspect wife didn't have any hope to see me catch any fish and AidanC didn't care much for the phantom fish-talk.

RyanC sat close to me with the rod in his hand for a while before he finally asked if he could crank the reel. I told him: "ok. just a little bit though." He obliged and I went back to struggling with hooking my worm. Five minutes later, I looked up and noticed the line had seemed to move to the right significantly. It wasn't obvious if the wind did that or if RyanC did it. RyanC then complained about the line being heavy at that point so I went over to check to see if we hooked a branch or something. It turns out a fish was at the other end of the line! RyanC was happy that he got to reel it to shore.

RyanC helped me reel in 4 rainbow trouts (~8-9 inches) in an hour: fist one escaped at the shore and the other 3 ended up as bird food eventually. A crane was near by and swooped up the released and yet struggling trouts...

I had trouble getting the hooks out since the fish swallowed the hooks deep -- I will need to get a better hook remover.