A Wonderful Afternoon of Fishing

It was a very unseasonably warm 10C today with the sun shining brightly, so with the wife at work I decided I wanted to take the boys out for something special - some late lunch at a local restaurant, and then some fishing down at the river. It almost turned into a disaster when we were out at the Bagel Shop and I had to whisk them away before ordering, because of their tomfoolery. But a 10 minute drive and a good talking-to calmed them down enough to go back for another try, and sure enough they were good as gold. I ordered two Eggcellent Bagel Subs on whole wheat, toasted with mayo and bacon, and split one of them between the boys. Then we were off to the river.

It was such a nice day out that someone had a yard sale set up, so I had to stop to have a look around. Coincidentally they had a bunch of fishing rods, and I managed to pick up about 8 pretty good ones with 3 good reels and 2 not-so-good reels for 4 bucks! We got down to the river where I was able to determine that 2 of the rods were kid-sized, and identical except that one was red and the other blue. It was almost as though it were planned because one boy likes red (and yellow and orange), and the other likes blue. They seemed to work, so I got them geared up from the tackle box, and within 10 minutes we all had our lines in the water. There is a nice spot on the Ottawa River near the bottom of Parkdale, not far from our house. We stayed on the little point to the left on that map, below the big point at the top. It was a gorgeous late afternoon, and we left just as the sun started touching the horizon to our west up the river. It was a gorgeous sunset - wish I'd remembered my camera!

The boys did a great job of casting, and the oldest learned a few other skills with swivels. The youngest had a tough enough job keeping his line from getting incredibly tangled - happened to him twice the 90 minutes or so that we were there.