The fishing sucked, but the weekend was great!

First, let's get all the details about the fishing out of the way....because I'd hate for you to suffer just to be disappointed at the end. The fishing sucked! I caught one bass which was only about 8 inches. Besides that, 3 days of fishing when I could squeeze in a few minutes yielded nothing much to speak about. However, it was the weekend of the Rock family reunion.

Every year my wife's family has a reunion picnic and camp out at her uncles house which is out in the country just south of Letchworth state park. My mother in law is one of 13 kids, so the family is pretty large and the weekend finds us tucked closely together in tents and campers. Family comes from all over NY and as far away as Florida.

Her uncle is a kind, crazy, and generous man. He's so welcoming to everyone that comes and this year he made a ton of grilled chicken that was absolutely delicious!

Every year the bonfire is fueled by wood pallets. here's my oldest son trying to deflect the heat with another pallet so he could get close enough to roast a marshmallow.

My wonderful wife had to work Saturday morning at 4am. Being new at her job she didn't really have any vacation time to take, and with little work recently she took a chance at staying on the schedule for the morning, but hoped she'd wake up to no work available...that didn't happen. She ended up with just over 6 hours of work...at 4am....from a camp ground. She was able to connect to her work with her cell phone and laptop and after sitting inside the van for a few hours, she upgraded to an outdoor office for the last few hours.

The highlight for the younger kids was being able to FINALLY do their lemonade stand. They've been dying to run one, and I had the thought to put it up at the reunion because they'd have more foot traffic than if they did it at our house. It turned out great and they will be counting the money and paying back investors (mom and dad) and likely have a great profit!

Collecting cold spring water for lemonade

 

 A few other highlights were frog hunting and listening to the bands.

The tiniest frog of the day...look closer

 Sure, I had hoped for more from the fishing, but with the pond getting hit by fishermen, swimmers, and dogs, it was tough to get the fish to come out and play. Even with poor fishing, I'm already dreaming of going back soon! Might take a day trip down sometime soon, or a single night camping trip.

Fishing and Camping

I don't get 3 day weekends much so it was nice to have one this past July 4th weekend.

It started off nice with a night out fishing with my wife. First order of business for the night out was a U turn on the Parkway to help a motorist change a tire. She should have changed the tire many many miles ago, it had a lot of wear on it. Plus, a reminder note to check your spare air...we put the spare tire on it was very low on air and barely did the job....at least we hope so because a mile down the road she turned off and we parted ways.

Messed Up!!!

Once on our way we headed to a creek we haven't fished together for likely 9 years or so. We stopped at the first wadable bridge spot and found an old favorite tree had fallen.

Although we found some places from shore to fish from, my wife thought she'd slip into the water and wet wade up to my spot and surprise me. Well, the surprise was on her...when she stepped in, sunk in, and she fell on her butt.

Black and white

We saw one carp, outside our casting reach, so we took off and went to a well producing pond. Soon after arriving we started to catch a few fish!

Now, it's great to get instructional information from websites, that you can apply in your own life. So, here's our educational part of the show. When you want to get going, but you want to fish the spot your wife is in simply say "I'm ready if you are."  See, she'll assume you mean you are ready to leave, and she'll reel in the line. While she's doing this you slip down to where she was fishing and start to cast....and then pull out the biggest fish of the night right in front of her! Then, have her take a crappy phone picture of it hoping it's quality will sway people to believe you photoshopped the image.

Bass

 

Of course, this method might bring some disapproval from your spouse.

Say NO to bass!

....but that disapproval can be reverse pretty easily by getting ice cream.

I ordered mine with 1/2 sprinkles

On Sunday 7/3 my wife convinced me that we needed to go camping for the night at her uncles property. A bunch of her family was there and so we packed up and left. The 1.5 drive went well, with snacks and drinks and kids who behaved.

When we arrived my rod spent most of the night and following morning under the wiper so it was ready to go at a moments notice.

Ready and willing

When we pulled up there were about 5 people on the pond fishing with worms. Reports were that one girl caught a few sunfish and others had caught one or two. But, for the most part, it sounded like things weren't going as well as most had hoped. After about 30 minutes enough people moved and I had room to cast. On cast #2 I landed a bass that was about 15 inches long. One guy, who I just met minutes before, jokingly said he was going to throw me in! Not long after that, he admitted to having a fly rod that he's planning on pulling out and learn to cast it!

The fight

The fish

Besides fishing we had fun eating smores, sitting around the fire, and watching the stars.

It turned out to be a good 3 day weekend full of fishing and a last minute camping trip....and some delicious grilled chicken made by my mother in law!