Wednesday Fishing Report: We Got "Squirreled"

I took Isaiah to the lake this evening. The wind had blown like crazy all day, but by 6:00 it was beautifully calm. So we loaded up the canoe and headed out.
When we got there I carried the canoe down to the water. I always take my hat off when I do that--it gets in the way--and Isaiah tried it out. Nice look.

We put in at the channel and paddled north some distance along the bank to the area the boys and I fished the other evening. I was convinced we would have a better shot at some fish there. Everything was looking good; we saw a few Drakes and Callibaetis, and there were fish rising.

We anchored where I had caught several fish last Friday, and, just as then, they were beginning to work ten or fifteen feet out from the willows.

Isaiah was using my rod, and went to work himself to get used to casting a fly rod again. He was doing a good job, getting the fly out there a ways. He had on the Bat Caddis from lastnight, and I tied a Drake on his rod. We would see which the trout were going to prefer tonight.

Then the wind picked up and the fish went down.

It's one thing when the wind does that to me. It's another thing when I'm trying to give one of my kids a positive fishing experience for once. Is that too much to ask? I take it philosophically (mostly) when the wind blows me around the lake, but I get ticked off when it happens to my kids.

Isaiah took it all in stride, though. We were still having fun. But the point is that he doesn't know yet what he's missing.

Soon, though, he was getting tired. He's been working in a friend's orchard this week, so he had already put in a good day's work before we came to the lake. And there were simply no rises to be seen anywhere in the windblown water.

Sigh. Time to go.

So I changed his fly to a juicy looking nymph and we pulled anchor and headed for the truck. It was a long way, into the wind--my shoulders told me I hadn't paddled like this for awhile--and he trolled the whole way. I kept hoping....

Oh well. We were having fun, and he talked the whole time about, you know, things; like sports, and puberty, and his work in the orchard, and puberty, and what he was going to do with the money he earned, and puberty....

I'm remembering now the constant hyper-awareness of every change in your body, and that constant underlying worry that somehow you're the first kid ever that's NOT NORMAL. Isaiah doesn't realize yet how normal that is.

We loaded up the truck. It was good to have Isaiah around to help.

As we pulled out on the road it felt strange to be leaving before dark, but it was a beautiful evening. It was good to see the world in a different light.

We counted over twenty deer on the way home, and found this Bull snake on the paved section of the road. We didn't know for sure what kind of snake it was until we stopped and checked, just as another car ahead of us had done with another snake. There is a fascination that compels one to want to know if it's a Rattlesnake or not.

In the midst of our conversation in the car I mentioned the fact that we had been skunked. (I guess I'm a sore loser; couldn't just drop it.) Isaiah said, "No, we were squirreled." So I asked if he meant that we'd lost our nuts. He thought that was funny.

It's a puberty thing.