David’s First Rowboat Adventure

So it was a nice day and David had been asking, “Daddy, when are we going to go out in a boat?”

I still had some work to do, but figured “what he heck – let’s go fishing!”

So of we went to the club and discovered only about two other people around. Got the rods set up (just in case David wanted to hold one) and paddled out.

It was funny to see David a bit startled at first when he first stepped into the boat – he wasn’t expecting the boat to move a little. But he bravely carried on, set up his “lunch bag” with our treats beside him, and sat down.

It’s been a while since I’ve been in a rowboat myself – so after discovering once again my right shoulder is stronger than my left shoulder, compensating, we made a straight line for the middle of the small lake and then to the east end as the breeze that was blowing seemed to be coming from the east – made for some nice drifting back.

David just loved it! You can tell by his smile (the pics are clickable – you can see larger images if you click on them – use your back button on your browser to return):

 

I had brought along my 7’9 Sage 2 wt for David to hold if he wanted – but he was more interested at the time in enjoying the sailing. I had my own rod – and used it – but didn’t really do much serious fishing as this was the first time I’ve fly fished from a such a small watercraft with someone else in the boat – and I was more interested in sharing David’s happiness about simply being out in a boat. He had been looking forward to it ever since his life preserver had been purchased.

Eventually, we did come back to shore, and I spent a few minutes fly fishing from the dock. By that time, the temperature had dropped quite quickly – although there were some hatches on – and the odd fish hitting the surface – nothing much was going on.

In fact, others who had been there all day had told me that the fishing had been very tough.

I tied on a Wooly Bugger, had a few casts – but nothing. Then, an interesting thing occurred: I was very slowly stripping line, when I thought I should just let the wooly bugger sink deeper, and watch it’s action as it sank – when a fish hit it. I didn’t have more than 10′ of line out in the water plus the leader.

It was a nice rainbow! David was very excited to discover a fish was on the end of the line – as was I, of course. While playing the fish, I fumbled around for my camera – this fish simply did not want to be brought to hand at all and put up a great fight.

Finally got the fish close enough to the dock that I could kneel down and pull it up, removed the hook, and managed a quick picture before releasing it:

I had second thoughts about keeping it for breakfast – but decided that I’ll do that another time.

David ended up having a great time even though he didn’t catch anything. He didn’t seem to care much, and enjoyed the holistic experience. I did manage to get him trying out some fly casting – but we’ll leave that for another blog post.

And perhaps tomorrow, David and I will make it out again!