Fishing with No Expectations

“Why are you waking me up at 6:30, Dad?” Tate’s groggy voice had a hard time getting the question out. I hadn’t told him the plan. It was a 6:30am wake up for Tate & Gabe to hit the road for a Trout Fishing Rodeo. To be honest I didn’t even know it was called a “rodeo” until I got there, and I’m still not sure what a “fishing rodeo” is. But, it was a great time that ended in an unexpected trophy.

I was invited by a friend a couple months back to join him and his two boys. I hadn’t taken Tate fishing in two years and hearing that it was a well stocked pond for just kids, it seemed like a great opportunity. Karlyn suggested bringing Gabe the day before, and I’m glad we did.

He wasn’t too happy when I first got him up and the tree allergies created quite the puffy eyes. Tate had jumped up as soon as he heard we were fishing, and it didn’t take long to for Gabe to catch up with the expectation of what the day my hold. We only had to wait about 30 min before we could start enticing the the trout with the bait (thanks to Rick for waking up at 5:30 with his boys and saving a spot for us).

While that 30 minutes ticked away, we talked about how the pond had just been stocked with over 1,000 trout and in previous years you would barely get the worm in the water before you were reeling. It never did hit that speed, but eventually they started biting. Tate quickly remembered how to reel in a fish, but was still a little squeamish in holding the cold, slimy trout. Gabe looked at me like I had two heads when my excited voice directed him to start reeling. The look in his eyes spoke to me, “I have no idea what you are asking me, Dad!”

Gabe caught on quickly, and by the his second fish he fought well as he pulled in a 13″ trout.

On arrival we were handed rules of the “rodeo.” I could cast, but the kids had to reel the fish to shore. It also described how win of the trophies that lined judges tabel. First fish caught, biggest over-all fish caught as well as opportunities for different ages groups. We didn’t come to win, just to fish. I hadn’t thought much of it.

But, when we checked Gabe in for his 13″ fish, I noticed there wasn’t anyone else noted in the 1-4 category. I thought maybe…but didn’t think much of it. We kept fishing until we hit the limit of 5.

As we hung around for the awards ceremony, again I thought Gabe might when biggest fish. They said a name that started with “G”, but it wasn’t Gabe. “Oh well, they didn’t expect to win anything, just to fish.” As this the thought was still in my mind, Gabe’s name was called! He won for “Total Inches.”

They weren’t too thrilled with Dad waking them to start the day. It ended with Gabe not wanting to put down his trophy, as well as enjoying a nice dinner of Trout (well, at least I liked it, everyone else settled for one bite).

They did take a picture of all the winners for the paper. Gabe kept talking about how he would be in the Paper. I’m not sure what Paper the Tyrone Area Community Organization 2012 Fishing Rodeo is in, but I found all the pictures on the TACO Facebook page.

To see more pictures I took, you can check out my Facebook Album “Daddy & Boys Trout Fishing Adventure.”