Fishing on the Bridge

I still had one more day on my fishing license. It was such a beautiful day. There are so many things I could do while I’m on this little unexpected vacation…much of which I could at home like read, knit, nap. I can’t fish in the ocean back home so I made good use of that $14 purchase. I woke up about 6:00 and the sky was beginning to get that pink glow of dawn. I got up and made my RYZE mushroom coffee and checked my emails. I remembered to go on the recreation.gov website to reserve next spring’s campsite. The electric sites sell out super fast so I didn’t want to miss out on our spot. I fixed a nice breakfast then went out to watch the sun come up while I sipped my coffee.

I got all my stuff together and drove over to the old Bonner Bridge. I was thrilled to see over half the parking spaces were empty. I loaded up my wagon and hauled my fishing gear, chair, tackle box, bucket, bait box, and Mr. FixIt’s fishing rod out to the spot I love…right at the top of the bridge. The water is deeper there. I got everything organized and threw out my first cast of the day. Bam! I hooked a big one and started reeling it in…but it slipped off the hook and was gone before I could haul it up out of the water. I could see (and feel) it was a good sized fish and put up a fight but I never got a good look to see what it was.

Mr. FixIt always uses squid, but the gal at the fishing center told me they had fresh bait shrimp so I bought some. Man, those fish were wild for that shrimp! I got hit after hit but shrimp is soft and easy to pull off the hook so I lost a lot of bait. But I also hooked six fish (including the one that got away.) I got a puffer fish, two flounders, and two skates. All catch and release. But man, was it ever fun. The sun was hot, the sky was blue, the water like glass. I fished for over five hours then called it quits. I gave my leftover bait to this nice grandpa who was there with his family.

The vast majority of the people fishing the bridge yesterday were men. They sat on either side of me, cheering me one with every catch. I was having trouble getting the skate in and the grandpa guy came over and pulled it in by hand for me. I didn’t know how to get the hook out of that one…they’ve got a weird mouth on their underside. Then I didn’t know how to pick it up to throw it back in. He showed me how to use the pliers to remove the hook then grasp the tail to pick it up. Grandpa Fisherman was running from person to person in his group to help haul something in or bait a hook or measure a fish to see if it was legal size. It was fun to watch him using his love language which was obviously acts of service. And his family obviously adored him.

As of yesterday, the part for the truck is not in so I’m still waiting. There are so many things I could do, but I don’t want to run around all day and get overly tired because I still need to drive this camper home when the truck is ready. I have these socks that need knitting and I have some things saved that I want to read. That might be the extent of it for me today.