Family Fishing Trip

My family has, for as long as I can remember, been terrible at catching fish. We’ve always been the family that is at the lake all day and never gets a nibble. Meanwhile, other people arrive, catch their limit and leave in an hour.

However, that all changed two years ago. My mom discovered a new campsite three years ago. She wanted to go so she made reservations and a few weeks later we were headed toward Colorado.

The campsite sat just outside of Telluride, a small, peaceful town on the mountainside. The drive took eight hours. We were bored driving through the New Mexico deserts.

Finally, we did arrive at camp and it was worth every second of the car ride. We felt we had the best site in the whole campground! It was considerably larger than the others were and it had a narrow path that led down to a stream behind camp. We were very impressed and we all could see the makings of a great week.

We had fun hiking through the mountain forests, and biking down an old dirt path that led to a lake. However, as always, we came up short when fishing. In fact, we only caught one fish the entire trip, and it wasn’t with our poles. I found a fish trapped in tangled fishing line near the shore.

I wasn’t going to let this fish get away! I pulled the fish in by hand. That was not easy. It was worth it though, knowing that I was the only one in my family who caught a fish. When we came home from Colorado, we all agreed that we would go back again the following summer.

Our friends, the Murins, also went to that campsite that summer. We were anxious to find out what they thought of it because Mr. Murin was a master outdoorsman. He said that they had a great time and that the fishing was spectacular. We were, of course, surprised to hear this having had no luck ourselves.

‘It’s all in the lure,’ Mr. Murin said, as he began fishing through his tackle box. This is where I must omit a bit from the story. I must keep this magic lure a secret. I will allow you to know that it was for trolling, and we didn’t have a boat. ‘No problem,’ Mr. Murin said. ‘You can have the old motorboat that we have in the backyard. We don’t need it anymore. I bought a new boat the other day.’

A year passed and we were ready to try again. We packed our gear into the trailer and set off for Colorado. We arrived at camp and quickly set up. Everyone was eager to go to the lake so we jumped back in the car and took the five-minute drive there. My dad and I threw the boat in the water.

As we all piled in, we could see that there was a problem. The five of us and our black lab were in the boat and there was no space for maneuvering. Skillfully, we rearranged the gear and made room for five people and our dog in the 12-foot boat. Once situated, we cast our lines in the water and started the motor. We had only gone 20 yards when my younger sister, Stephanie, got a bite. The problem was, she was still letting out line. She had no idea how to stop the line from casting. My dad helped her reel in the fish.

As soon as my sister brought the trout over the lip of the boat, I got a bite. It just got easier from there. We were reeling in fish so fast that we made a contest of it. A half-hour later, we were off the lake with a stringer of 27 fish, all measuring at least 12 inches. I caught 8 fish, more than anyone else in my family.

Out of everything we did that trip, nothing was better than walking through our campsite to the water spigot to rinse off the massive stringer of fish. Everyone in the campground saw our success. I can’t remember how many fish we caught by the end of the week, but I do remember there were so many that we gave some to the people in the neighboring campsites, and to our friends back home. Ever since that trip, my family has never come away from fishing empty-handed.