Fishing Part 2

Yesterday I didn't finish my thoughts on fishing with my dad. I actually had the following story in mind when I started writing yesterday and just didn't get to it. The first thing that made me think of this event with my dad, is me being on a trip with my son last week. I find it sad that as children we do not value the time we get with our parents, until later on in life. I am sure we all had fun at the time the activity was going on or remember the event, but do we really value the experience.


I remember going on the "boy's" trip with my dad, grandpa Mark and my uncle Lamont when I was around nine or ten. I loved going on these trips, but I don't think I really appreciated this event until now. Every late October we would go down to Navajo Dam to go snagging salmon. My dad and the other men went on this trip before I started going. I remember being really excited about being old enough to go with the men. I know for a fact that I never did appreciate my dad for letting me go. It had to be a big pain to take me on the trip with them. He had to teach me how to do it and also have me take away from his fishing time. He also had to hear me complain about how cold it was or being hungry. I am so thankful and appreciative that he took me each year.


I remember my first snag still to this day. My dad had always talked about how tough it was to bring in a salmon if you snagged its tail. Well sure enough my first one that I ever caught, I snagged it right on its tail. Of course I didn't know this until I brought it into shore. When I first caught it I yelled to my dad, "I got one". He dropped his pole and ran over to help. He told me how to pull up then reel, so your not fighting their swimming against you all of the time. I remember thinking that I would never get that fish in. My dad just kept telling me to keep going. At one point I asked him to take over and he told me, "no you need to bring in your first one son, you can do it." He was so confident in me and supportive it was awesome. Of course dad was always like that in life. When I finally got it in, dad gave me a high five and we took pictures. He also told me that I now had to gut that fish and any other ones I caught. I remember how big our smiles were that night eating my fish.

Dad Memories and Thoughts #2

Today I want to talk about my memories of fishing with my father. I am not that big of a fisherman anymore, however it was something me and dad did a lot when I was growing up. I remember several times going to Lake Powell for the weekend and fishing with the whole family. It seems like we were always down there when I was a kid. Dad absolutely loved to go play on that lake. When we were getting the photos ready for dad's slide show, I saw a lot of the pictures from one trip to Lake Powell. I remember this trip well. We caught probably 70 striped bass that weekend. The whole family was down for that trip, so it must have been a long weekend or something. I remember dad complaining that all he was doing was putting a worm on my hook and taking a fish off of it. Dad always complained about doing that, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he loved doing that for his kids and then his grand kids. The other memory i have of that weekend with my dad is transferring the fish back to camp. It seemed like it took forever to do it! (probably just an hour) We loaded the fish into 30 gallon trash cans and then surrounded them with life jackets so they would float. It was "easier" to transfer them across the channel that way than trying to carry them across the slanted slick rock. My dad told me jokes that he said I better not tell mom the whole way. I remember about drowning from laughing so hard. It took my mind off all of the swimming and work we were doing. I remember that once we got out of the water and took a little break on the shore my dad saying, "now we just have to carry these damn things up that small hill". Just so you know the hill was not small at all. We did have a great fish BBQ after all of the work.