Fishing

It's quite a shame to think that we have been in Vernal for a year and haven't taken advantage of all the local rivers, lakes, and reservoirs to fish in. So yesterday, we got all the fishing gear out and ready, bought three more poles for the boys (because everyone has to have their own pole) and headed to Matt Warner reservoir for a day of fishing. After having to turn around twice and a few wrong directions, we finally arrived and got our spot staked out. Rhett spent the first hour getting everyone's lure on, teaching to cast and untangling everyone and everything. We fished for an hour or two with no bites. We tried everything - spinners, lures, power bait, and eventually decided that we should take a break and have some lunch.

After fishing for another hour and still no luck, a family came to the water and starting fishing no more than 20 yards from where we were. Within 30 minutes, they had two fish. We watched them catch 3-4 more (and they were throwing back some because they were too small) and started to wonder what we were doing wrong. I walked past them and asked what they were using - hoping to get their wonderful fishing secret. "Cheese bait" is what he told me, and offered me some. I took it back to our spot and we proceeded to outfit everyone's line with a triple hook and some cheese bait. After about 30 minutes (and watching the other people land 3 or 4 more fish), Rhett hollered - he had a fish on his line! He reeled it in and when we brought it up on shore, you have never seen 3 more excited boys in your life! I think the whole place knew we had a fish.

After that, the fishing was great - I caught the next one, then Zach caught one. Rhett finished with Zach's and two seconds after he threw out Zach's line for him again, he had another bite - a monster 16 inch trout. At one point, we were all sitting with our lines in the water when Andrew all of a sudden fell over with his chair – almost landing him in the water. Rhett went over to help him back up and grabbed his pole – and realized there was a fish on the line! Unfortunately it got away – it was pretty hard to explain to Andrew when his line came back empty, that he had had a fish but it got away. After I caught another one, Porter was starting to get pretty discouraged that he hadn’t caught one yet. So we sat for a little bit longer, and when I had another on my line, I let him bring it in. He was finally an experienced fisherman. Every time we would bring a fish in, Andrew would shout and tell everyone that we had a fish and Zach would yell, “More dinner!!” You would have thought we were catching $100 bills or something. We finally called it a day after catching 6 fish and having about that many bite and then get away. The boys are so excited to eat their fish. I’m surprised they’re not asking to fishing again tomorrow. We had a wonderful day.