If At First You Don't Succeed...

If at first you don't succeed... then try and try again...

This past weekend my family and I made a trip up north to a remote location for some camping, fishing, and to just enjoy the great outdoors.

It was a new experience for my gf and stepson because they have never been camping before. For my dad, mom, brother, and myself it was just another day in the woods. We have grown up in the outdoors and we used to get away every chance we got.

Moving forward...

While we were up there this time we hadn't had much luck fishing. In fact, we had zero luck. We had not caught a single fish and we had gone fishing 2 times up to this point... and we only had 1 day left before we had to head back to the big city.

I told my dad, "hey why don't we get up early tomorrow morning and try fishing in that stream that goes right next to the cabin we are staying in. I know we didn't have much luck last time we tried it but I saw a couple really nice holes that might yield some fish, plus we are going early in the morning this time. We might have a chance to catch some fish before we get out of here..."

He thought for a moment, already bummed out that we hadn't caught much, but reluctantly agreed he would go.

So the next morning we got up bright and early and walked a few hundred yards to the stream. This is what we saw...

It was beautiful...

On top of that, on the first cast... my dad caught a fish... It was a nice sized rainbow trout.

Immediately our moods changed from ones of despair to one's of hope and excitement! I caught a fish on my 3rd cast... and then another on my 10th cast. Before an hour had passed we had already caught 5 fish. The number of fish isn't really what this story is about, however.

You see right about the time we had to head back and start packing up all our stuff, we stumbled upon this little beauty:

It was a beautiful, natural, little waterfall. It was the perfect spot for trout to hang out and wait for food to drop down to them from the pool of water above. My dad decided he would try this one last spot before we had to go. So, he threw his lure in, and immediately I saw a massive trout surface and jump for his lure! We both squealed with excitement! This was the fish we had been waiting for! It was almost 2X as big as anything we had caught prior...

So, he threw his lure in again... but nothing went after it the next time. I decided I would toss my lure in the little hole and see if I could catch that nice fish. But, nothing chased it as I reeled it in. We both continued to toss our lures back and forth trying to get that fish to take one of em... but nothing.

We were rapidly running out of time as we were needed back at the cabin to help pack things up, so I cast my line a couple more times resolute that if the fish didn't bite on one of these next few casts I would have to pack it up and head back. My dad knew he was facing the same scenario. However, he had one last trick up his sleeve... He decided he would switch from a lure to a fly and see if he could float a fly down in that hole and maybe get that trout to strike something different.

He tossed the fly down there a couple times but nothing seemed interested... then on about his 5th cast with the fly, he felt a tug... not a big tug, but a tug none the less. It was a bite! Could this fish actually be caught after all? He threw his line in one more time as we both watched with anticipation... immediately after hitting the water... boom, the fish took the fly! We hooked him! My dad wrestled with him for a couple seconds before he was able to pull him out of the water, but we finally landed him!

The smile that was on my dad's face that day was about the biggest you will ever see. There was a great satisfaction for him in catching that fish... probably more so than any other fish he had caught in his life. He had switched lures several times even going to a fly and he had been persistent, not giving up. He felt like he earned that fish.

Of course, right after he let the fish go, he turned to me and said I owed him a dollar... You see, every time we fish together we have a bet for $1 on who can catch the biggest fish.

I gladly paid him the dollar that day... I felt like he earned it!

As we walked back to the cabin, I showed him this picture I took when he was taking the fish off the hook...

I told him... "I feel like I got your best side with this picture!"

It appears I got the last laugh after all! :)

I hope you enjoyed my story!

Live well my friends!

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This has been an original story by @jrcornel and all the images used are my own.