I went fishing!
Now, I have fished before. But I use the term loosely. It was in my Great Aunt's pond. I remember when I was younger, we caught a few fish once and then threw them back. Nothing fancy. But this time, I'm talking about real fishing. On Lake Erie. And we kept what we caught.
My friend Kevin from work invited me to go with him and a group of his buddies on a day fishing trip up to Port Clinton last Saturday. So I figured what the heck. It sounded like fun. And going fishing was something that I had always wanted to try but just had never been serious enough to do something about.
Kevin's group had gotten us a sweet setup. We were going to be going out onto Lake Erie with professional fisherman and they were going to bring the bait, the poles, and everything we would need and they were going to take us out to the "hot" fishing spots so we could catch something. And catch something we did!
So Kevin and I drove up to Port Clinton Friday night to meet up with the rest of the group. We didn't pull into the hotel until after 10:00pm. Our boat was scheduled to leave the dock at 6:30am, so we pretty much went straight to bed. It was a beautiful sun-dripped morning on Lake Erie when we got up and we split up into two boats of 6 people and took off.
Kevin and I had each gotten a fishing license for the day that allowed us to keep what we caught. And on this trip, we were specifically targeting yellow perch. For this type of fish, we could catch and keep up to 30 fish for each person in the boat in that day. That seems like a lot, right?
Our fishing started out kind of slow. We caught some decent-sized fish early in the morning, but then the bugs came out. I guess the locals call them "midges," but whatever they were, they were everywhere! It was so bad that we literally had to stop fishing and move to a different spot. Now I know how Joba Chamberlain felt in the MLB playoffs that one year in Cleveland!
But it was a good thing we moved. At our next spot, we started hauling in the fish. We had poles with two hooks on them and we loaded up each hook with a minnow. If you've never put a minnow on a hook before, believe me it is harder than it looks! The pros make it look so easy, but those little minnows are slippery and very hard to hook. I had a few jump out of my hands, so I eventually wised up and waited until I could grab some dead ones. They are much easier to handle when they don't move!
At times, some people had double catches. That is, they caught a fish on both hooks at the same time. I did it a couple of times myself, but most of the time the fish were too small to keep, so we ended up throwing a bunch of them back.
So after being out on the boat until about 2:30pm, we finally decided to come back in. All in all, our boat caught 158 fish! Still under our limit of 180 (with 6 people on the boat). But we did manage to out-catch the other boat, which gave us bragging rights. I lost track of how many I caught myself, but it was probably about 15 or so. Not bad for a beginner!
As for the fish, we piled them all in a cooler and took them over to be cut for meat. I don't really like fish though, so I gave my fish to other folks.
But I wasn't in it for the fish. I just wanted to go and meet some new people and to try something I had never done before. And I had a great time! Although it was fun to try, I think that once is enough for me. There are some people that really like to fish. And then there are some people who would rather do other things. I am one of the latter. But it was a cool experience nonetheless. I highly recommend that everyone try fishing at least once in their lifetimes. If nothing else, it will make you really appreciate the guys who do it for a living!
Enjoy the photos!
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