National Fishing Week!

This Week is National Fishing Week!

 This is sport that my family loves to do in our off time. Whenever we get a chance we try to hit up our local fishing spots. Living in Wisconsin we have a wonderful variety of lakes and rivers that are great for fishing and nature viewing. We do not own a boat so we are some what limited to where we can fish. With our son being so young and not ready to sit in one spot for a long period of time we do not use the option of renting a boat, perhaps when he gets a little older. Even so that still leaves plenty of places that we can take him, some of which offer a playground within 50 feet of the fishing dock or fishing area. We love these places and will usually make a whole day of it if we can. Sometime its very crowded and we will go to the quieter less child friendly lakes but with my kid you give him a stick and a little area for playing and he is good to go. Every time my husband has a day off we try to go do something at one of the local parks, however this time of year is our favorite time to fish because of the beautiful Wisconsin weather. Once the summer hits and the humidity gets high the lakes get overly buggy.  

Some people may look at us like we might be a bunch of first timers when they see how much stuff we bring to fish for a few hours.While most people just go to the lake with their pole and their tackle box or bait and sometime they might also bring a small cooler with drinks. I on the other hand, I always have a water resistant beach blanket that I lay down on either the ground or the dock, we each have a pole, and we each bring a chair and my husband's tackle box. Most places I also carry a backpack which will carry snacks, my camera, and my yarn in case I decide not to fish. This way I can sit, relax, and crochet while my boys are enjoying their time fishing.  My Husband will bring a cooler filled with water, soda and usually something to grill out for either dinner or lunch. 


The other day we were on our way home and decided to stop at one of our favorite fishing spots. Since we always keep our poles in the van this is something that we can do quite a bit. 


When we had pulled up it had just stopped raining and was just about dinner time. To my husband this means its almost prime time for fishing. He says fish love to bite right after the rain and right after dinner time. Hoping that he was right I grabbed my camera so that I could get some pictures if we caught any fish. I love to take pictures of  this so one day I can make a big scrapbook of all the fish we caught during our family fishing trips. 


As we set everything up and started fishing we received a few more rain showers. The bright side to this was that every time it would rain a little bit the fish would be bite more. When ever I can, I try to use real worms when fishing. My Husband on the other hand uses all types of lures. He is on the search for big fish, where my son and I are more on the search for pan fish. Now keeping in mind that I love to go fishing for these guys the over abundance of small baby ones can sometimes get a little old. 


So as the night went on I was the first to catch a fish and I think it couldn't have been any more than 3 inches. My husband and I laughed and then I threw him back in but to our son he was getting pumped up and excited. I was also the winner with the most catches of the night with a grand total of 8 fish. None were larger than 3-4 inches except one, so we threw them all back. My son sat down next to me and was just

   having a great time as we reeled them in together. My brother who was also with us for this trip was the winner of the largest catch. He caught a 9 inch large mouth bass, which was fairly small and was thrown back as well. Now my husband on the other hand was the winner of the most unique catch of the night and the only keeper.  As he is reeling in his line it's looking like he might actually have something pretty big. All the sudden we realize that his lure is already back at the pole and their is still 15 ft or so of line left in the water. Unsure of what is going on we start pulling in the access line. When the end finally pops out of the water there is a nice lure twisted up in a massive ball of weeds.

 So at least he didn't go home with out a catch for the night. All in all it ended up being an awesome night of fishing. For me the bonus was the scenery for the evening with the full moon reflecting off the glassy lake. At one point of the evening you could see both the sun and the moon reflecting in the lake. Unfortunately, I could not get to a spot to get a photo so I will share the moon reflecting in the water. After the sun had gone down it was still so bright that we didn't have to use our light up bobbers. I love nights like that. 

In honor of National Fishing Week I was very happy to have had to a chance to share one of my favorite pass times with you. We always love to hear from our readers so if you have any great fishing stories we would love to hear them.


Happy Fishing!

Stephanie