For Tonya's birthday, we got her all geared up with fishing supplies. Rod, reel, line, hooks, bobbers, sinkers, worms, the whole deal. (Have you seen this PowerBait® stuff?)
Saturday comes along and we have plans to drive a couple of hours to some killer secret trout fishing holes a serious angler friend of mine was kind enough to tell us about. We hop into the Jeep with Molly and we hit the road. Guess what!? Molly gets car sick! Molly gets car sick a lot. We made it less than thirty minutes away from the house and it was clear this trip was over...at least with Molly.
Take Two - Sunday - Tonya's Birthday.
We're on the road again. This time Molly is home happily sleeping. We decide on trying our fishing luck at a set of much closer lakes. After deciding to avoid Bartlett Lake where all of the speed boats, jet skis, and general non-sense was heading, we took a left and headed for Horseshoe Lake. There are some really cool camping sights along the Verde River that is dammed up to make these lakes. In our exploring we found ourselves off of the map and driving some unnamed tiny back road where I was glad to have my 4x4.
We must have been in the right place because after forty-five minutes of seeing no sign of anyone along the big road, the small road, and the I'm-not-sure-this-is-a-good-idea road, we reach the bank of the Verde River and come across several sets of people with the same idea in mind.
We set up and put bait to water.
As it seems we were the last to arrive, the fishing spots with nice shade trees were occupied. Our's was a bit sunny early in the afternoon, but the tailgate of the Jeep came to the rescue.
Several hours pass by. We try the PowerBait®. We try the worms. We try the chicken livers (yes). All with no success; not even a nibble. Things were getting grim. We ran out of beer. I feared that Tonya would have no birthday victory over the fish. If it weren't for the aerial acrobatics of the half dozen huge turkey vultures (gotta love the T.V.) that seemed to have found something on the other bank, we may have given up.
But then out of the blue (or into the muddy brown as was this case) Tonya's bobber disappeared. It was an actual fish; just as planned; it's really happening!
Tonya lands a channel catfish!
Is it just me, or is the catfish smiling for the photo too?
Being the true conservationist that she is, Tonya returned the catfish to the river and continued her round of alternating exclamations: "Holy crap!" and "I caught a fish!"
Further hours passed, the T.V. moved on and I learned the hard way why they call it "fishing" instead of "catching". But what a great time! We had a breeze blowing across the Verde River on a fantastic early fall day. I got to relax and watch a bobber bob with my beautiful and triumphant wife while the shadows stretched out and the sun dipped low behind us.
Maybe next time I'll catch a fish...maybe I won't...but I don't think it will matter at all.
