Gone Fishin'

On Saturday, Shawn and I got up before dawn and headed out to Jefferson Lake for some fishing. This is the lake where Shawn went fishing with his dad, but this was my first time fishing here. In fact, this was my first time fishing in years...since I was a little kid. I had a great time!

The lake itself is gorgeous, set in the mountains. We found ourselves a spot on the rocky lake shore, and Shawn got to work getting our poles ready. I have a bit of a problem with worms (ask Shawn for a funny story about this), but I had no problem baiting my own hook with salmon eggs. Shawn taught me how to cast, and I started fishing. If I remember correctly, I actually caught my first fish while Shawn was still getting his own pole ready! We lost count of the number of fish that we caught, but we agree that we each caught about the same number of fish. We ended up keeping just two fish, although there were a few others that could've been keepers.

I discovered that the chipmunks at Jefferson Lake are not at all afraid of people. You can tell that they've figured out that people fishing often have food, and they'd come within a foot of where we were standing. Eventually, the chipmunks did manage to steal our Pringles. :(

It did rain on us. The shower lasted for about 30 minutes, and fortunately the thunder and lightning wasn't too close to us. Shawn was very proud of me...I just put on my rain jacket and kept fishing! I'm pretty sure he was expecting me to start complaining or to run to the trees for cover.

Shawn also had the experience of gutting his first fish. We didn't have a chance to cook them this weekend, so I now have two trout in my freezer. Hopefully they won't stay there long. I have to admit that they're kind of creeping me out. :)

I really enjoyed fishing with Shawn, and I hope that he takes me again sometime soon!