We are coming into the home stretch of summer. After this weekend, Scoot only has two more weekends before school starts. Next weekend, her pops already has selfish fishing plans. The following weekend is Labor Day weekend, so we had to hit the water. She's been wanting to do some trout fishing, but the water temps on wadeable rivers were too warm. Finally, the temps are tolerable and the water is low enough for her to wade. So far this summer, we've fished for gills, sunnies, largemouth and smallies. All of those provided pretty consistent action. This was definitely going to be the slowest bite so far, so I picked a spot that would provide other entertainment. We parked here, and she was off to play while I got us rigged up. Then it was time to make the short walk to the river. We started off swinging soft hackles. That way I could get the fly out there and she could do the rest. All she has to do is hang on, the fish will hook themselves. We only got one pull from a small fish that came off after going airborn. She thought that was pretty cool. I knew we would get fish on nymphs, so I rigged up a couple 16-18 beadheads. It didn't take long to catch a few small bows. Working hard to keep the line tight. These were her first trout landed on fly gear. She was pretty excited, but I was hoping to find a better brown or two. We worked back up to a run we unsuccessfully swung soft hackles through. Then, we found a brown. This one pulled much better. I knew that couldn't be the only one in there. It took a handful of casts, but finally the bobber went down and I felt a solid fish. I immediately handed her the rod, and to be honest, I thought this fish would come off. No doubt I have a biased opinion, but she really impressed me with this one. She didn't allow the fish to get slack, she let it run when it wanted, and kept it out of a fallen tree. She was pretty excited about this one. She credits her lucky fishing shoes. This could be the last fishing outing for the Summer of Scoot. Maybe one more trip to a pond or something Labor Day weekend. The waters are crazy that weekend though. There are still early antlerless archery hunts for whitetails to look forward to. No matter what happens over the next couple weeks, its been a fun summer.
Very cool. I was running by a stretch of Lycoming here after work today, and it got me wanting to take the rod out once more before archery.
Vito, cool adventure with your daughter. I really miss my days living down in Fredericksburg, VA. I could be on the Rappahanock river and fishing for smallies within 20 minutes. I am sure my kids would eat up a river like that if we had one around here. Matt, my kids like to fish..but they LOVE to swim. Below is the last time we fished this summer. Everytime we go fishing it always ends up like this...
Thanks guys, we have a lot fun together when we get. My parents took us fishing and hunting all the time. I'm just imitating my Dad. Thats great stuff, VS. Whatever gets them outdoors.
