Trout Fishing

We started by waking up at 5 am, before the alarm went off at 5:30. Funny how Dave can wake up (and get up) all on his own when fishing is involved.

We followed the guide, Ethan, to the first stretch along the river. The guide gave Dave some pointers before taking me back upstream to fish. Ethan showed me how to bait my hook with salmon eggs--that was super easy. I told him I knew how to tie a hook on with a clinch knot; we joked about their being a test over knots at 4:30. He showed me where to cast and stood by to take the first trout that I caught off of my hook, demonstrating how not to harm the fish. After pointing out another place to fish, he set off to check on Dave.

And then the panic began to set in me. I'm not used to taking my own fish off of the hook. I'm afraid I'm going to hurt the fish--as if hooking them in the first place didn't hurt. Ethan did leave me with a pair of clippers so that I could cut the line off of any fish that I couldn't extract the hook from. My instructions were not to grab the fish too tightly and not to make them bleed. Do you know how hard it is to remove a hook when you're not supposed to hold the fish too tighty? So, when I caught the next trout, I tried to get the hook out, while I gingerly held him not wanting to hurt him. But, I ended up cutting the line and leaving the hook in the fish. Dave assures me that the hook will work itself out or the fish will be caught soon by someone else. But, I still don't feel good about this.

So, now I have to tie that clinch knot to get another hook on my line. I dig a hook from the Skoal can of hooks and sinkers Ethan left with me. Luckily, there was a log just behind where I was fishing so I could sit down while I attempted to tie my knot. It was a pitiful knot. I quickly decided that my knot tying test would be a performance based assessment. My first knot was ok. I put on two bright red salmon eggs and casted. Immediately, I had another little trout on the line. I reeled him in and again tried to get the hook out. This one was hooked in the lip, so I did manage to get it out and release the trout. Two more salmon eggs, another cast that didn't go where I meant for it to go, another bite. I reeled the fish in, but after assessing the position of the hook on the bottom of the mouth and trying to get it out for a few minutes, I decided to cut this hook before I hurt this fish. I sat down to tie my next knot. Another pitiful, bunched up knot was the result. At this point I was tying on the tiniest hooks I had. My reasoning was tiny hook, tiny fish. I finished up, put on two salmon eggs and casted again not where I wanted to. Another bite. This time as I reeled the fish in, something beautiful happened. My pitiful knot didn't hold!! I didn't have to try to get the hook out of the fish. Then and there, I decided my ugly knots would be the best thing to happen to me this morning.

Ethan rescued the fish from my hooks when he whistled to me from downstream. I walked down and sampled the next fishing hole. He laughed at my pitiful knot and showed me his method of tying on a hook--three loops around then three loops through. I put on two salmon eggs and caught another trout. This one was a wild trout; Ethan showed me the difference in the tails of the fish. Hatchery trout have tails that are more rounded from the concrete in the hatchery. The natural trout spawned in the stream have more pointed tails. (Could I really tell the difference? Nope. I'd need to seem the side-by-side. But it sounds impressive, right?)

We caught up with Dave. Dave and I posed for a picture before moving on to a second area.
Here Ethan taught Dave to mend line when fishing in waters of different currents and to steeple cast. I played with my salmon eggs and caught nothing. My lack of success didn't bode well for this fishin' hole, so we were off for our last stop of the morning. Ethan showed Dave a few other places to fish during the afternoon and on Sunday morning.