Fishing with the kids in the New Year

Katie with her first ever fly caught lake run brown trout.

It had been a while since I had the opportunity to take all three kiddos out fishing, so my expectations for a tangle free, stay warm, don’t fall in fun fishing day where admittedly a little on the low side.

And just to make things even more interesting - We would also be joined by my Father in-law, brother in-law and his son to make up a rather large fishing party, at least for the stream we were fishing.

Jonathan hooked up with 3 large trout, landing one - this nice male.

The kids and I stuck to fly fishing while the In-laws used their spinning gear.

Over the next few hours we all took turns fishing a few different locations. Some of us spent time fishing a couple of nice pools while others took to walking the banks for likely holding spots. And in between taking turns fishing, the kids played in the woods just behind us, built forts, and set adrift a good sized branch or two.

Katie gets ready to release my first catch of the day

Those who fished flies did the best on this day. The kids and I dead drifted woolly buggers under and indicator and hooked seven fish with another hook-up coming via an egg pattern. And even though we tried fishing a swung streamer, no fish wanted to move that much for a meal, so it wasn’t all that surprising that the spin fishing crew couldn’t get anything going with the lures they fished. I think we may have a couple of new fly fishing enthusiasts on our hands.

Both Katie and Jonathan hooked and landed their very first lake run trout, and at the end of the afternoon we put five fish in the net and all of them were brown trout.

Ethan and Katie found a little time to build a streamside shelter

If we continue to have a milder than average winter, we just might be able to find open water to fish right through till spring.

Ethan pulls hard on a nice lake run brown trout

Getting ready to release Ethan's fish

One last fish

All fish were released

Have a great new year!