First Mother/Daughter Fishing Adventure of The Season!

Beginning of The Basin, Lake Auburn

April 7, 2012

Mia woke up bright and early! And when I say bright and early, I don't mean the crack of dawn. Her normal wake up time is much earlier than that. She's a "get up to catch the sunrise" kind of kid, and I'm happy that she awakes at such an hour with a smile on her face. (She is her mothers daughter!) She came into my room, with that smile that can light up the dark, and hovered over my head checking to see if I was awake. I was, actually, and had been for quite a while before that thinking of our plans for the day.

I reached out suddenly and grabbed her in a bear hug, pulling her into the bed with me for a moment of snuggle time. That moment didn't last long though, as I muttered out to her that we should go get some breakfast, and do a little fishing.

For a kid who doesn't talk, she is very smart and she sure knows what's being said! As soon as she heard the word fishing, she scrambled away from me and grabbed her shoes. (She had obviously forgotten that she was still in her jammies!) I got up, got our stuff together, and within a half an hour we were out the door.

We stopped at a local diner for breakfast, which kind of did not impress Mia, until she saw her food. She was ready to get outside and adventure. Still, she sat patiently and ate her breakfast and drank her juice. As soon as she had her fill, she slid my wallet over the table towards my hand with her big beaming smile. I could just imagine what she would say if she had words at this point. "Here mom, pay now so we can go outside!" :)

Continuation of The Basin

We headed towards Lake Auburn, since it was pretty close to our new home. It was only 7:30 in the morning, and all of the trails on the Route 4 side of the lake were already packed with cars. I decided to head towards the back side of the lake so we could fish The Basin. I'd never fished here before, so I was interested to see what fun awaited us.

We parked the Jeep on the side of the road, and headed over to the side where the picnic area was. I put a shiner on the hook and cast Mia's line out and handed her the pole. She stood there, jerking the pole this way and that, watching her bobber (and the attached bait fish!) jumping out and back onto the water.

I set my pole up with the same bait and cast out, waiting for something.....anything to hook on. Nothing. Mia put her pole on the ground and tugged at my sleeve, showing me her hands. "They're cold", she gestured towards me. I reeled in her line and mine, and we sat at the picnic table for a bit while I warmed up her hands. I put her gloves on after they were warm again and asked her if she wanted to keep fishing. That was a no brainer!



It was actually a bit colder than I had anticipated it being, mostly because of the piercing wind. Still though, we were happy to just be outside enjoying time together, and Mia signaled that she wasn't ready to leave yet by heading back to the water.

Yes, I'd like to keep on fishing mom!

Just as I had cast her line out again, a father and son came over from the other side, and asked if we were fishing for anything in particular. Apparently further down the basin, the landlocked salmon were in a feeding frenzy, and he and his son had several bites on the shiners that they were using. So, further down The Basin we went!

Again, I set up our lines and cast out. Mia did her jig of this and that with her pole. I kept letting my line out and reeling it back in hopes that I would entice a salmon. I looked over at Mia's bobber and saw it moving up and down in the water, and then looked at her and realized that she wasn't moving her pole. "Fish on Mia!" I exclaimed to her!

I dropped my rod, reached for hers and reeled in her 10 inch salmon! As I was taking it off the hook, she kept looking at it and at me making funny faces. She wouldn't touch it, but she was quite interested to see what her line had caught. I showed her the fish and told her the difference between this and a brown trout, because sometimes people confuse the two, and then showed her how to release it back into the water.

Miss Mia waiting for me to get her line in the water

I wanted to get a picture of Mia's catch, but my hands were frozen and wet, and I didn't dare try to use the camera for fear of dropping it into the water. And silly me, I didn't bring any gloves of my own!

We walked around The Basin for a good portion of the morning before deciding to move on, and that one catch was the only that we had there. I was glad that the salmon hooked on to Mia's line, and that I could show her a bit more about fishing!

I might be tempted to bring her purple Dora pole along with me next weekend to test out her fishing technique of jerking the pole this way and that!