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| Under that log but not in the trees above! |
Mentored Youth Day went about as well as it usually does for the boy and me. He started his spring break with a half-day on Friday and some marathon gaming that night, I am sure, so I had to wake him up at 2 PM on Saturday. We got out from 4 to about 6 PM and tossed a Rapala. It was crowded even at dinner time, so elbow room was at a premium—a lot of grown men fishing with 2 year olds not fishing (maybe borrowed stunt babies?) but Tom heard that it was much worse at the Penny. At least the Penny fish were in since March 20, not since less than two days ago. We played with a big old golden for a while, moved three fish in a tricky spot for the boy’s developing casting skills (I snagged twice myself trying to tuck the cast into the spot from the high bank without waders), and we dropped a decent rainbow on the hand off, just so he could at least land one that I hooked. I should probably just teach him to fly fish since my days of bank fishing with bait are long gone, but I did promise that the next time we go out this spring we will at least have some corn and his recently repaired chest waders!
Well you at least got out! My daughter wants me to teach my Grandson to fish eventually. I figured mentored youth might be an uncrowded venue to use, but now I see that is not gonna be a panacea. Competing with technology is a challange educators face in these times. My 3 daughters were all exposed to fishing, only one took to it and still does at age 25.
ReplyDeletePerhaps that spot we fished might work for him with a fly rod after the maddening crowd dissipates??
RR
All good points, RR. I had a feeling Mentored Youth Day would be like Opening Day with the 20% spike in license sales this year and last. Everyone is fishing, and fish are not spread out on all creeks, so defeat the purpose of social distancing... It is a day to put on the calendar though, so we got out, like you said!
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