Fishing

I am not sure why I go fishing. I must have some latent need to be skunked or something.

John Shaffer, Thal Trower and I went down to the Federal Prison at Sheridan both yesterday and today to fish. There is a two to three acre pond in front of the establishment that gets stocked by fish and wildlife folk every other week during the spring (fishing license revenues at work.) This is about a 30 mile trek...almost, not quite, but almost to Spirit Mountain Casino. You go when you think you know when they are going to stock the pond, basically.

Yesterday was a dry run...so to speak. We went to Spirit Mountain for breakfast (great buffet for $4.95) and pulled in the parking lot of the pond only to find it empty, save for one truck. They had the word...Fish stocking is Wednesday... We stayed for an hour but got no bites. But today, brother, we were at it for real.

John and I had a project at FISH (our local food bank) for the early morning hours, as in moving six freezers, but by 11:00 we were raring to go. Thal drives (thank you very much) his truck so we can carry poles, chairs, and what ever else we think we need. And indeed today they had stocked the pond. And the parking lot was full.

Three hours later we came home with some fish...well, John and Thal did. They each kept three. The biggest is pictured above...a 15" rainbow trout. Nice fish.

I did catch two...that is...two were on the line. One got off. He/she was the nicest...about a foot long, but just as I was about to pull it from the water...off it swam...sans hook. The second I did land, but it was small...a keeper, John thought, but not worth the effort to clean, etc. I thought. So I came home empty handed.

Oh well. It was a beautiful day and we had fun. And I wasn't really skunked...just a little miffed. Did it get the juices flowing to fish again another day? Yea, maybe in about two years.