I took last Thursday and Friday off from work to take Nolan fishing up at Cass Lake in Minnesota. Eben had rented a cabin at the
Stony Point Resort along with my uncle Terry. The DeYoung brothers (Dave and Paul) also were up there fishing. They had all been up there since Monday the 4th.
I arrived with Nolan at Cass Lake around noon on Thursday. We had spent Wednesday night at Grandma Becky's place in Mason City, which made the drive up there a little easier. After picking up my fishing license, we were able to go fishing with Eben & Paul that afternoon, and Nolan managed to catch his first fish ever!! He was really excited about that. We were fishing right off the side of the boat, so it wasn't like he had to worry about casting or anything (all he had to do was push the button to let some line out). I may have helped quite a bit with the actual setting the hook and everything, but he helped real it in, and was proud of his catch:
He did pretty well holding his fishing pole and letting the line out and everything that trip out, but waiting for a fish to bite got a little boring for him after that. After that he really wasn't interested in holding a pole and sitting around, but he found other ways to entertain himself on the boat. Playing with the minnows or looking at the fish we caught in the live well entertained him quite a bit. So he really only "fished" on Thursday, and after that he was our official minnow-catcher and would grab a minnow for anyone that needed more bait.
Most of the fishing that I did was on Friday morning and on Saturday morning. Friday I caught 19 perch (13 of them were keepers), and on Saturday I caught 20 (with only 9 keepers). Generally the perch were on the small size. So overall I must have had 22 perch worth keeping and 39 total that I reeled in. The fish that we caught Friday morning really all were caught within about an hour's time. We had a place along the reeds somewhere on Cass Lake, and it seemed like for a while the fish would bite within seconds of putting the bait in the water. I'm not sure on the exact number, but between the 5 fisherman we caught around 60 perch on Friday. The outing on Saturday I went with Terry and both DeYoung brothers to Pike Bay (while Eben stayed at the cabin to play with Nolan). We came back with over 30 fish on that trip.
Each night we tried a little trolling for Northern. Eben and Terry each caught 1 Northern (they were average to smallish in size, with Terry's being a little bigger). Terry almost caught a large one, but it got off his line.
Friday for lunch we had the traditional fish fry. Eben was our fry cook, and he made fried perch, northern pike, onion rings, potatoes, and donuts. I even filled a few donuts with lemon pie filling, which turned out pretty well.
Each night we also built a campfire, and we enjoyed traditional campfire treats like smores or hot dogs.
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| Here Nolan and Eben were getting ready to head to the fishing boat on Thursday. |
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| Eben with the northern pike that he caught. I helped to net it. |
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| Nolan and Eben had plenty of quality play time during the trip :) |
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| Here I am with one of the perch that I caught. |
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| Nolan actually enjoyed the fried fish quite a bit. Of course he enjoyed the homemade donuts as well. |
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| Eben manning the fryer as Paul & Dave DeYoung sample the goodies. |
