This past weekend I took Nolan with me for my annual trout fishing trip up to Yellow River in Northeast Iowa. On Friday I picked Nolan up an hour early from school, and we made the drive up there in about 3 hours and 45 minutes. We set up camp... I believe at campsite #120. The Seagos were there (Jon and Matt anyways), and Tyler was there. Jeremy would not get to the campsite until early Saturday morning. Anyways, on Friday we enjoyed a nice campfire, and I made some s'mores and roasted marshmallows. Nolan did not want a s'more... only a roasted marshmallow.
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| Nolan at the Harpers Ferry sign. |
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| Here we are at our tent! |
On Saturday, I got up with Nolan early, had a quick breakfast, and we set out to go fishing by 7:00. First we tried the big fishing hole by camp which is my favorite spot, but after 30 minutes with no luck we decided to move on. We walked down the trail to the first fork and took a left and followed it all the way to the rock wall. Again, not even a nibble at that spot. Finally, we went further upstream to the next hole (it would be straight at the first fork and then immediately left at the second fork). There we caught a nice rainbow trout using Nolan's spiderman fishing pole, and Nolan used the net at the water's edge to bring it in. At that point Nolan wanted to head back to camp and show off our fish to everyone.
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| Nolan carried the trout all the way back to camp with his net. |
After hanging around camp for a while and having lunch, I would head out again with Nolan to go fishing. Nolan, Jon, and myself went back to the hole where we caught the first fish. Jon caught a small brown trout there (and Nolan helped to net the fish), and he released it back to the water since it was small. Shortly thereafter Nolan's spiderman fishing pole broke, so we headed back to camp to grab our backup pole (Maxwell's Paw Patrol pole). Since we were at camp, we just started fishing at the hole close by camp. There I managed to catch 3 more fish (two rainbow and one brown trout), and Jon caught one nice rainbow trout. During that time, Nolan was half bored and would wander back and forth from camp and the fishing hole. He was excited to see 4 fish on the stringer!
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| Nolan holding our stringer of 4 fish. |
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| My favorite fishing hole by camp. |
By the time I had cleaned our fish, Nolan had passed out back in our tent. He took a 3 hour nap! That's something since he usually doesn't nap at all. Once he woke up we made a little supper for him and hung out around the campfire. Matthew made some roasted duck for the adults, which was quite good. I cooked one of the trout we had caught in some aluminum foil with butter and lemon, and it was very tasty. Nolan enjoyed throwing pieces of cardboard into the fire.
On Sunday, I packed up camp and headed home around 8:30. So the only fishing we did was on Saturday, and between Nolan and myself we caught 4 fish. All in all, it was a very fun weekend, but I was happy to sleep in my own bed last night! Here are links to previous fishing trips to yellow river:
2018,
2017,
2014,
2013, and
2012.
