The big Two-Nine

So as of today I am another year older. I don't feel any different than I did at 28 but alas I am now 29.

So one of the things that I have been wanting to do for awhile is go fishing. I had fished with family years ago but had not been since. Well for my birthday we decided to finally buy all of the required gear and licenses and head out to hopefully catch some dinner.

The destination for the day; Trillium Lake on the outskirts of Mt. Hood. We were up and out of bed at 0 Dark 30 (3:15am) in order to get everything together and get to the lake just after sun-up. The target of the day being Rainbow Trout.

The drive was beautiful and since we were on the road so early there was very little traffic to speak of. After an hour and a half we pulled into the day use area at Trillium. This is possibly the prettiest place I have ever been, the view was ridiculous.



After a little bit of fumbling around looking for a spot we decided to stake out a place on a small dock and test our luck with the fish. Since neither of us had been fishing in over a decade we weren't quite sure how our day would play out. But hey when this is how you are spending a day how bad could it really be?



After an hour or so of plunking around I felt a small tug, so I set my hook and began to reel in what I hoped would be a keeper. Up came this guy...



He was about 9.5" and weighed a little over a pound I would guess. He definitely qualified as a keeper in our book, so onto the stringer he went and we got back to fishing. After a few more casts I got another bite, went to set my hook, and my pole snapped...my brand new pole, is now unusable...my heart sank and I was sure my day was over and one fish would have to suffice. Thankfully that didn't turn out to be the case as the guy who was fishing next to us graciously offered up one of his spares for me to use. I love the hospitality that Oregon in general seems to have. So as the day progressed the weather went from sunny and still to cloudy to windy a little light rain, pretty much all over the place. But through it all both Terra and I managed to catch fish. Here I am with most of our haul...



After that photo was taken we fished for another hour or so and both managed to snag one more fish which put us at our legal limit of 5 a piece. It was 3pm by this point and we were both kinda cooked from getting up so early so we thanked "Bear" for saving the day with his spare pole and loaded up for the drive home. On the way home we stopped off and returned the POS rod that broke on me and upgraded to a nicer one. The cost difference was pretty negligible and we are both hooked on fishing after today, it really was a blast and a great way to spend time together, and since Oregon has 1200+ lakes, rivers, and streams that are considered fishable there is plenty of opportunity and variety.

So after making our way home I tried my hand at cleaning our catch. I had read up on the process and watched a few YouTube videos and it looked pretty simple. Thankfully it turned out to be pretty much as simple as it looked and within about a half hour I had 10 nicely cleaned trout to work with.



We froze 4 of them for a later time and the other 6 got stuffed with salt, pepper, lemon slices, and fresh dill and went on to the barbecue. I must say they turned out pretty awesome!



So that brings us to the end of my 29Th birthday. I had a terrific day and will have a memory that will last much longer than any present could. So that's it, I'm tired, I'm sunburned, and I'm full of trout...Life is good.