Family Flotilla hits Mirror Lake 9-7-09

[albinotrout]

Started out bright an early at 5 am loading the car. At six loaded mamatrout, the minnows, and a neighbor kid and headed to the hills. Got a late start at the lake due to a small detour that didn't pan out. (too rough a road). We got set up and launched. I hung with the two boys \while mamatrout hung out with princess whiny butt. I noticed they didn't last too long out on the lake. Wasn't long before I was into fish. The trusty woolly bugger stikes again. Saw that my son had one on his fly rod (he is only 8). Did a quick release. This was the neighbor kids first float tubin trip if not fishin trip altogether. While fighting one of my own all of a sudden I heard "hey I got one". He caught his first fish ever. Soon he had a second. While helping him with his fish, my son looked as though he was working his way to shore. Well, I got into my 9th fish of the day and whoa. Found that I had a problem. I wasn't planning on keeping any this trip but monstro changed my mind. I had to keep it in the landing net until I caught up with my stringer attached to another tube. We got blown across the lake by this time and started to work our way back. Found my boy in a cove bobbing up and down resting his eyes. I hooked him up to the rescue toon and proceeded to haul him in the the launching pad. By the time we got there he had caught two more fish totaling four. He forgot his stringer in the car so they all got released. After getting him in to the ramp I headed back out for the neighbor kid. I found him struggling with a knot in the line. He was holding his own against the wind which is good for an 11 year old. I hooked him up and we started to head in. I lent him my fly rod and showed him the ropes. I had already shown him how to use one of my loaner spinning rods earlier in the day. He caught a couple more fish ending the day with two he kept for his dinner. We were off the water by 2:30 and had the stuff cleaned up and put away by 3:30 and ate a bite to eat. By the time we left the parking lot was full and bank tanglers everywhere. We left having spent a great day on the water and as a family. I ended the day with a total of 14.[cool]
[signature]