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Multi-year TR, or How To Get Your Wife To Let You Go Fishing(As Long As You Take Her)
So, A little background first. My wife did not have a happy childhood. Her house was ruled by a violent and angry alcoholic. Fishing trip memories for her consisted of tears and a camper rolling into the lake down a boat ramp.
I grew up fishing. My dad and his buddies were always out together. One of my first trips out, they taught me how to flick beer bottle caps with deadly accuracy(not very useful when you're 5, but a great tool when you're 17). They even rigged a derby once so that I got a prize.
I'd been fishing less and less, basically zero. I still enjoyed it, but life got in the way. So three years back, my wife asked me to take her fishing. Awesome. Lets start slow, and then maybe we can get to a point where we can take fishing trips together.
So we bought her a cheap spinning kit, and took her to the local trout pond. She enjoyed her time outside, but didn't catch anything. Just a few nibbles.
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We went down there a few times, but still nothing. But she was learning that fishing doesn't equal catching. And patience.
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So then, on a summer holiday, I suggested we stop at this dinky little lake on the side of the highway, and try her luck. She was pretty much not impressed with standing beside a culvert ten feet from the road.
But I knew better. This was the no-fail lake that my Dad had brought me to when I was little. You won't catch anything big, but you will catch a fish.
Fifteen seconds. That's how long it took for her to go from bored to OMG THIS IS THE BESTEST THING EVER!
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The first fish she had ever caught. We have a picture of it on our wall. She was so happy. And then we let it go.
So now she's enjoying fishing, because she's actually caught a fish. And she's wanting to do more. No more worms and bobbers. She wants to cast and real in and do things. Fish. And so now she's casting from shore at the mouth of a creek and manages to bring in a decent sized whitefish.
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Still, we let it go, but she's really excited about the whole fishing experience.
This whole time, I've been going through the motions myself. Not really fishing, but just kinda hanging out, helping her learn to love fishing. Slapping the water with my rod. No pun intended.
So this spring, I told her I'd like to do some real fishing. Take the canoe, do a little work, stay out an entire day. Fish like I'm used to. So we go out to a lake not too far from home, and I hooked the first rainbow I'd caught in about 10 years. Under a pound, but it was a fish on my fly rod. Happy.
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But this whole multi-year plan was to get her into fishing, and finally she hooks into a rainbow that's a legal size. I wanted to keep it for dinner, but she said no. So we let it go. Fishing is fun, but catching is funner.
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Now a few weeks later, we've been heading out, exploring lakes, finding people, wind, and no fish. But she's still enjoying herself on the water. Fishing. Happy.
So I find myself with an unexpected day off, and my wife has to go to a baby shower. No chores at home, so I decide to go scout out a new lake. See what I can find, since my research is telling me that it can get busy at times. Maybe we can go there together down the road if it's not too bad.
Now a little more rewind to the story. the largest rainbow I'd caught growing up was around five pounds. A legitimate five pounds, not the "I got a 5-pounder" bullshit that's actually three. Same with my dad. We usually caught fish in the 2-3lb range. Super fun on the fly.
Within 30 minutes of getting on the water, in a lake I've never fished before, I landed this. No scale on hand, but it barely fit in my net, and I'm guessing it was around 5-6lbs. Biggest rainbow of my life.
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Sorry, the picture sucks, but it's hard to take selfies in a canoe. And I wasn't going to take the fish out of the water since I was going to release it. Only using the net to aid in release.
So later that week, my wife texts me and asks if we can go fishing on Sunday. To that new lake I went to. The one with the big fish. Success! She's almost as excited about it as I am.
We're out on the lake, and she says " Oh, I think I've got one." Lands this. Six pounds. On the scale. I'm floored. She's stoked, but she doesn't understand why I'm so excited about it. No big deal to her.
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As we're packing up at the end of the day, she asks "Can we go fishing again on your next day off?" Gentlemen, we've now won the game. She now wants to spend all our time off fishing.
And I don't blame her. She's been fishing for three years, and caught bigger fish than some people have caught in their lifetime. Oh, and she also caught a another one that day, only 5lbs though. Only.
The next Sunday was special. We almost pulled the plug since it was pretty cold out, but I'm glad we didn't.
She's still using the same cheap spinning rod, but we've been pulling a fly slowly behind the canoe. 8lb line, 4lb leader and a beaded leach. Seems to work pretty well for her.
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I had to look at the scale three times because I didn't believe it.
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12 pounds. And then we let it go. The look on the faces of the people on shore when we showed them the pics was priceless.
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We had a picture of me salmon fishing up at Haidi Gwaii on the wall, but I've since replaced it with one of her and her monster catch.
Multi-year TR, or How To Get Your Wife To Let You Go Fishing(As Long As You Take Her)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Grizz
Thanks for the fish stoke, great photos and good on you for getting her out there.
I'm 99.9% sure the Whitefish is a Northern Pikeminnow. You would have found out if you ate it. Whitefish=tasty, NP=yuck.
Northern Pikeminnow = Ptychocheilus oregonensis which most people call(ed) squawfish which looks like what she caught, I agree.
Whitefish are all genus Coregonus, and probably in this case would have been a lavaretunus species.
Multi-year TR, or How To Get Your Wife To Let You Go Fishing(As Long As You Take Her)
