Fishing
Page
This page exists to remind me of some of the great fishing trips I have enjoyed in my lifetime. I don't consider myself a great fisherman, but I truly love any time I am able to spend on a beautiful lake or stream with a fishing pole in my hand.
Many of these pictures were taken before I realized the importance of "Catch and Release" in able to preserve fishing resources for generations to come. For the past 15 years, I have diligently practiced "Catch and Release" fishing, keeping only those fish I know I will cook and eat the same day they were caught.
Click on any of the thumbnail pictures below for a larger version of the image.
This
4 pound largemouth bass was caught at Elephant Butte Lake (New Mexico)
when I was about 14 years old. I remember dragging a minnow by a dead
tree only about 6 foot from shore and was amazed when this thing hit.
It was definitely the biggest fish my family or I had ever caught out
of the lake at the time.
My
brother worked as a security guard at a Campground/Water park in
Hutchison, Kansas where I caught this 3 pound largemouth bass. It was
the first bass I ever caught on a plastic worm. I also remember
catching 2 large bluegills that same day, also on 6" plastic
worms! I still can't believe those bluegills were able to completely
inhale the plastic worm into their small mouths.
The
Continental Ranch near Creede, Colorado was always one of my favorite
places to go fishing with my dad. This trip was in May 1982 and during
the first 3 days we had very little success fishing the normally
productive streams in the area. On our last morning, dad was packing up
and told me to give the ranch's private lake one more chance before we
left. This nice stringer of rainbow and brown trout was the reward.
A
wonderful day in May 1987 at Elephant Butte Lake with my wife Beth and
father-in-law, Joe Nixon. We caught 53 white bass and crappie in McRae
canyon, all before lunch time. If you view the larger version of this
picture, I promise we are with my wife Beth (not some girlfriend who
wanted her identity hidden). She was having a bad hair day and wanted
to be made anonymous :-).
OK, so I didn't catch any fish during our visit to Yosemite National
Park in October 1993. But we hiked into several beautiful lakes, and
the scenery was just incredible. This stick was the only thing on the
end of my line the entire trip, but it was still one of the most
enjoyable fishing trips I have ever taken.
I
learned to fly fish while visiting Gaston's Resort (Arkansas) in
October 1995. The day before this picture was taken, Beth and I had
caught over 40 trout while drifting down a 4 mile stretch of the White
River below the resort. So I hired a guide and instructor to find out
what fly fishing was all about. I caught 4 fish that day and only
endangered my wife and guide a couple times with my fly casting
technique :-).
In May 1997, Beth and I chartered a full day fishing trip with Captain Rodney Ristau
in Boca Grande, Florida. Beth was the expert that day, hooking and
landing a total of 3 tarpon (thank goodness she let me fight one of
them or I would have been just a quiet observer for most of the day).
It
was a great day of fishing, enhanced even more by an unexpected visitor
during Beth's first catch. It's an interesting story, so I am including
it at the bottom of the page. It was probably the most exciting
fish story I have to tell from over 30 years of fishing experiences.
This
Wyoming native cutthroat trout was caught during our trip to the Grand Teton National
Park in October, 1998. I caught a total of 6 fish at Bradley Lake,
all approximately 11 - 13 inches long, in about an hour and a half of
fishing. This was the first fish of the day, and it's golden color also
gave it the honors of being most beautiful as well. Later in the
vacation, I also fished a short time in Yellowstone River and caught
another Wyoming native, a mountain whitefish. I didn't do much fishing
on the vacation, but if you are interested, I created an online virtual tour of our 1998 vacation which
summarizes the entire trip.
This
picture shows the location of another one of my attempts at fly
fishing... in May, 2000 we hired a guide to fish near Lee's Ferry in
Marble Canyon. At one point during the trip we were near the base of
Glen Canyon Dam (Lake Powell), which provided us with a spectacular
view and crystal clear water. The water temperature is a constant 45
degrees and there are many fish in the 12" to 18" range. The
majority of the fish are rainbows, followed by cuttbows and cutthroats.
Despite
having an excellent time during the trip and catching about a dozen
trout, I have ultimately decided that I am not going to be a fly
fisherman. I had to concentrate too hard to keep mending my line, my
backcasts have no power at all, which causes all kinds of problems on
the forward part of the cast, and I constantly endanger those around me
:-). The picture on the left shows a much too typical facial expression
during the entire time I was fly fishing... my tongue sticking out of
my mouth (can't concentrate without that tongue :-)! Luckily my guide
worked very hard to keep the boat near fish, and despite my feeble
attempts at casting, I still caught some very nice trout. The image on
the right shows the largest catch of the day, a beautiful rainbow trout
approximately 20" long.
Early in the morning of May 16, 1997, I hooked my first tarpon and it was incredible (although very short lived). Just 15 seconds after hooking it, the 6 foot tarpon jumped clear out of the water just 15 feet from the boat. All I could do was yell "YOWWWWW!!!" and start laughing. Thirty seconds later the tarpon repeated its acrobatic performance and I repeated my reaction. It was spectacular! We were on a 19 foot flat fishing boat, and a fish larger than me was jumping and shaking its body no farther than 20 feet away! Unfortunately, I lost the fish a minute later, but what a great way to start the day.
We didn't catch anything else the rest of the morning, but in the afternoon Beth started her string of catches. The first one she caught was a pretty good fighter, but this tarpon (and the ones she caught later in the day) stayed deep and didn't jump like the one I hooked earlier that morning. She fought it for about 20 minutes when finally it came to the surface and we saw it very clearly as it cruised right by the boat. However, just as it was coming up along side of the boat, Capt. Rodney and I were distracted by a large brown shape coming toward the boat from about 40 to 50 feet away. It was coming fast, and all of a sudden the tarpon made a fast get away. Well in just seconds, the large brown mass was also right beside the boat, just under the surface of the water. But it wasn't just a brown mass anymore; Capt. Rodney and I yelled "hammerhead shark" just about the same time!! And it was huge!!!! Beth didn't see it until it was right at the boat, and between seeing it and two men yelling shark, she got quite a scare. Capt. Rodney said it was after the tarpon, so Beth came running off the front platform trying to hand the rod to him as quick as she could. I don't blame her, she was sitting on the front of the boat with no rail surrounding the flat platform, just a couple feet above the surface of the water. And believe me, the shark almost brushed against the side of the boat. So if that shark was after the tarpon, Beth didn't want that tarpon at the end of a fishing line that she was holding. He took the pole for about 30 seconds, but since the tarpon dove down deep again, the original scare was gone.
Capt. Rodney gave her back the pole and for the next ten minutes, she continued to fight the fish and we caught glimpses of the shark in the area the whole time. It never got that close to the boat again, but the 3 of us were still shaking when the tarpon surfaced for a second time and seemed tired enough to land this time. However, Capt. Rodney made no move to land it, and sure enough the tarpon made one last ditch effort to get away and succeeded. He apologized for not trying to land it, but said he was not willing to stick his arms in the water with the shark in the area. Later, when he did land one I discovered why. The captain has to wrestle the fish against the side of the boat, and that shark wouldn't have known the difference between his arms and the tarpon. But we got a good look at the fish and tha captain estimated it weighed approximately 125 pounds. But we were the talk of all the other boats in the area. One other guide who watched the whole incident estimated the shark to be 18 foot long!!!!! I think that was a slight exaggeration (my guess was about 14 foot), but you know it had to be huge if it thought a 7 foot tarpon would make a good meal! Of course our captain would make it out to be even bigger later (isn't that what all good fishermen do :-). We heard Rodney tell someone at the dock when we were all finished that the shark's head was wider than his boat! I thought the truth was fantastic enough, but the "fish story" was already starting to grow. What a rush!!!
Well Beth ended up catching 2 more tarpon before we finished. As soon as she hooked the second tarpon she handed the pole to me right away and let me fight it. I fought it for about 40 minutes, and just couldn't do it anymore. I had to hand the pole back to Beth, and 10 minutes later she finally brought it along side of the boat. This time Capt. Rodney did land it, we took a picture and released it. That one was estimated at about 140 pounds. The 3rd (and last) one she caught was the smallest at about 110 pounds which Beth fought all by herself for about 20 minutes. They also landed that one, took another picture and released it as well. What a day, by far the most exciting fishing day of our lives!!