I grew up, making fishing a part of life. Thanks to my dad. In talking to my mom, we think that my dad had my brother and I go fishing with him, just because he wanted to go fishing - someone to be around for his hobby. Yet, I really do like fishing.
I remember when I was in early elementary school, my dad took my brother out to a fishing camp. There weren't that many people at this camp, yet there were a ton of workers there - so basically, everybody got their own fishing guide. My dad let my brother go off on his own with one of the guides, while my dad and I went off with another one. There I remember one of the times we went out, it was just my dad and I at the time, and I caught 13 fish, while he caught one. Yeah, definitely something I never let him forget. :)
But of all the fishing trips my dad and I did together, I loved our fly-in trips. I was able to do two fly-in fishing trips with my dad.
The first one, I was in middle school - the summer between 7th and 8th grade. My dad didn't tell me what all was included in a fly-in trip. I quickly learned as I stepped off the plane that toilets and showers were non-existent for the next week. While I adapted to an outhouse, there is nothing like going out on a lake with absolutely nobody around you for miles. We were the only ones out on the lake; seeing the natural beauty around us was amazing. Then catching fish was fantastic - it was like they were just waiting for you to drop your line. It felt like you were catching fish before even baiting your line; they might as well have just jumped into the boat. Ah, there's nothing like fresh fish. Every meal was walleye or northern. So good. I absolutely love walleye.
The second one was right after graduating high school. Here, my dad taught me how to gut/fillet a fish. He and my brother had gone on another fly-in trip with a few of my cousins. The guy who flew them in was an Indian who lived just a ways down from where they flew in. He taught my dad, brother and cousins how to gut a fish and get the perfect fillet. So my dad showed me how to do it at this trip. I'd love to have the opportunity to do that again - that was over seven years ago, so hopefully I can try it again and see if I still remember how to do that. This trip, I was able to go with a few of my other Portland cousins, as well as my brother. It was kind of funny, because we did the food shopping basically before we left - it was a bit of a last minute shopping. As soon as we stepped off of the plane, I think we (or I) realized that our shopping was a bit...off. All of a sudden I realized we had a couple cases of beer, a case of pop....and like six bottles of water. And really not that much extra food. We finished it all basically within the first few days, so every morning we'd wake up and the goal was to go catch food for the day. I just remember being in the middle of the lake with my dad, blue skies, sun shining down, and all of the fish around just waiting to be our lunch. That was a great week with my family.
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