As It Turns Out...

Katy Loves Fishing! Now, I never would have guessed that. Prior to July '09, I maybe went fishing 2 or 3 times (at most). Paul had me try it when we went camping in the Wind River Mtns in July. Over that weekend, I caught 3 trout (he caught none...shhh). Brook Trout, Brown Trout, and we believe a hybrid West Yellowstone Cutthroat/Brook. It was a grand time. It took until the 2nd one before I was willing to actually touch the things...and Paul had to remove the hooks from them. We caught and released, it was a lot of fun. I was (pardon the pun) hooked after that. We went fishing the following weekend at Frye lake and I caught 1.95 (got the 2nd one into land but it slipped off before anyone with a net reached me) more, can't remember what they were...and a chunk of tree. I lost my "lucky" lure that day...but so goes life. I have my own pole, tackle box, vest and net now. :) Oh! And I really liked camping. We "roughed" it (no showers or drinkable running water). That was my 3rdish time camping outside of cabins with Girl Scouts years in my past. The other times were with a friend in middle school where we left halfway through the night because of a wretched storm, and the other time with with the Branham's when we were in High School during a holiday weekend. I only stayed one night with them, got there in the evening and left in the morning...so it's really hard to count either of those trips. Clouie came with us when we went camping in the Winds. She had a nice time, though she was fighting a skin infection while we were there which we didn't know about until the last morning. Paul said he'd noticed her belly was pink before we left...but it was red by Sunday morning. Poor little monster. No worries...she's fine. We're hoping to go camping one more time this summer before there's too much snow in the mtns, but we're fast running out of time. We'll see what happens.

Let's see...other than that...we've crammed as much summer fun into the 6 or so weekends I've had off this summer as possible. We visited Devil's Tower, my favorite place, in early July. Great time. It's been years since we've been to the monument and it's still as breathtaking as I remembered it. The next weekend was the camping trip. Then Paul's family came to visit us the 2 weeks after we went camping. Their visit was really great. PaPa came with them, and even our nephew Matthew was in attendance for the first week they were visiting. His dad (our brother-in-law) came up to get him, so at one point, we had 5 additional people in our 1800 sqft house. It was a bit crowded that weekend, but truly outstanding. Paul's folks went to Salt Lake City during the early portion of their second week visiting us, so Paul and I had some nights with just PaPa. Or at least Paul did...I started evening shifts the second evening...but I did have all the day and afternoon hours with PaPa. After their departure, it was time for our trip to Yellowstone. We went for 5 days or so and it was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of critters, and did a good amount of fishing. Paul caught a small brown trout on his fly-rod. I had a nibble with my "fly on a bubble" but that was about it. Can't win 'em all. We did an easy-ranked hike while we were there to the Fairy Falls. They were really nice. We did the hike earlier in the morning, which was good because the trail-head was CROWDED by the time we got back to the truck. So what all animals did we see? We saw three black bears, two grizzlies, four antelope (at least), a bunch of bison and elk, a bald and golden eagle, a bunch of jumping trout, and two wolves. It was our first time seeing any of the wolves in the park. Paul was thrilled since he's always wanted to see the wolves. If only we'd seen a porcupine and moose...maybe next time. Amazingly, with all the elk we saw, we didn't see any bulls. We found it a bit peculiar after previous visits to the park, but we suppose that happens sometimes...depends on how their winter went.

So, lots and lots of trips and traveling this summer. It's felt nice to be home the past week, but I am about ready to take my way own trip back into the Winds to do some more fishing. But, I'm not in a hurry. If a lure gets caught on something when I'm solo...I'm S-O-L since I don't have waders. Plus, I've never unhooked my own fish...so that could be interesting if I'm alone. Chances are, I'll wait until Paul can go with me in a couple Sundays.

What else, what else. I'm sure I'm missing things. I have been volunteering at our animal shelter which has been an adventure all of its own. There have been some great pups, and chances are low that I'll go through a breeder again to get a pup. Not that I have any regrets on getting Clouie that way...she's such an awesome and bad beagle. Love her to pieces. It's been a great summer. I'm sad to see it ending already. We had some snow in the Winds yesterday, it was fun to see them snow-capped when the clouds lifted yesterday afternoon.

The fall will be busy as it always is. Will write more later. Take care all!

New Boat almost ready for maiden (to me) voyage

Well I spent part of Sunday afternoon working on the boat. I redid the wiring for the fish finder, filled the boat motor with gasoline and got it going on 3 pulls! Dad's excellent maintenance made sure of this, even though it had been sitting in the garage unused for 8+ years.

For those of you curious, the boat is an aluminum 12' Open fishing boat. The motor is a 4.5Hp Evinrude. Both the motor and the boat are from 1980. That's right... 29 years old. The boat is in excellent shape as it's never been on anything but gentle mud! Heh

At this point, I'm waiting on the G&F department to get me the boat registration information. Additionally, I'm waiting on my permanent trailer tags. In either case, I am good on my situation until mid-May if I choose to take the boat out.

Additionally, it looks like this summer I will finally pick up fly fishing. One of Katy's co-workers showed me the ropes and I'm currently waiting on the last of my gear so that I can start fishing. As of right now, I'm hoping to spend Memorial weekend fishing in several different ways, by boat & fly fishing!