fishing

Sunday I took my nephew fishing. He had never fished in creeks before. It was a nice, sunny day… but not exactly warm:

In the shady corners, ice encased the roots and branches and rock ledges.

The water wasn’t as low as I had hoped it would be. My usually crossing spots were still a little deep for our footwear. Still, we managed to make it to a couple of nice pools:

Standing on the little rock ledges, feet partially in the water… a little different than standing on the end of a dock over the lake.

There were a few nibbles in the creek, but no real hits… We drove to Westfield – to where the creek dumps into Lake Erie.

Because more people fish here, we found more artifacts… including a hook that still held bait. Spencer posed this shot just for fun:

We never caught any fish. But we did get one amazing fish story out of the day:

After walking all the way down to the beach and never getting more than a nibble, we decided to head for home. While walking back upstream, we spotted an 18- or 20-inch fish (Steelhead?) in the shallows. It had flopped up on some gravel and was doing some rather interesting hopping and jumping to try to get back to the deeper water.

I shouted, “Spencer, get your pole! Look!”

Spencer said, “I’m going to get that one with my bare hands.” He hesitated only briefly to warn me, “I’ll probably get really wet.”

“Who cares? You have dry clothes in the car. Go, Go, GO!”

He ripped off his jacket and headed for the water, which was fairly shallow at this spot in the creek. He managed to get to the fish pretty quickly and had his hands on it several times… but it was pretty slippery. It got away, then he caught up with it again, then it slipped away. Spencer probably ran 100 yards downstream trying to capture that fish.

And where was my camera? Right in my pocket… I was too caught up in the drama to remember to take it out! What a great video that would have made, though!

Here’s my favorite shot of the day:

Thank you, Spencer! I can’t think of a better way to spend a gorgeous Easter Sunday!

Remember how easy it was for Tom (aka Mon@rch) to talk me into owl banding instead of housework? (Click here for full story.) Well, today, I was supposed to go hunting – for new jeans and some grown-up shoes to wear with skirts and dresses. Yuck. I hate shopping.

So when Terry suggested a walk in the gorge to go fishing, how could I resist? Perhaps I’d see some different wildflowers? Maybe I could try a few more shots with (the other) Terry’s 70-300mm lens? (Ha ha… I carried that lens in my backpack all morning and never put it on the camera…)

I did see some flowers… which I have seen this season… but hadn’t had a chance to photograph. There were LOTS of Painted Trillium, and only a few white (Large-flowered) and red (aka purple) ones. The breeze stopped just long enough to get a fairly good closeup of a tiny little flower called Miterwort, too. There were Wood Anemone, Hobblebush, and other small trees in flower, as well.

I pushed past my aversion to spiders to photograph this scary fellow.

But the main thing is, I went fishing! Here I am with my proud first catch:

I had to throw that one back, because it was kinda little. Later, though, I caught a much larger one which I’m about to try to cook up for supper.

When I was little, I used to fish off the end of a dock in Chautauqua Lake all the time. We would catch perch and sunfish. This was my first time fishing for trout in a stream. I loved it.

Aren’t I lucky to have such great friends who distract me from the yucky things in life? Housework, shopping – ewww! Owl-banding, fishing – Yeah!

Post-dinner update: Oh my god, was that ever tasty!