Fly Fishing with Henry in the USS Minnow

 

Taking Henry to The Ranch - April 2022

It had been a while since I had taken my nephew fishing. He's 10 and getting to an age where his coordination and patience are starting to develop; a perfect time to put a fly rod in his hands. I'd been careful to only take him fishing when and where I knew he'd be successful. This day's outing would be no exception. We were headed to "The Ranch", a private lake in the Owyhee hills stocked with quality rainbow trout. It had been fishing well and I hoped this would be the perfect trip for Henry to get the fly fishing bug.

Despite the wind in the Treasure Valley, we arrived to find the lake glassy. Please Lord let it stay this way for at least an hour. An old aluminum boat lived year round on the shore that only occasionally ventured onto the water. Dubbed the USS Minnow, I was told it was sea-worthy with only a small leak. We quickly wadered up and loaded the boat with an anchor, paddles and all our fishing gear. Before we pushed off, I pulled out a minnow trap and Henry and I set it in the willows. I thought it would be fun to see what we could catch while we were out fishing. 

We loaded up in the rickety old boat and pushed off. 

We awkwardly paddled toward an area where we could anchor in 10 ft of water and indicator fish with chironomids. A fish rose in front of us. 

"Hey, let's try here, Henry! There's at least one fish around." I said, as I slowly lowered the anchor over the edge. 

"Ok," He replied.

I showed Henry how to roll cast and told him what to watch for. It couldn't have been more than 2 minutes and Henry's bobber took a dive. 

"Henry, lift your rod! You've got one!" I shouted, while assisting him in setting the hook. 

Henry giggled as the fish thrashed about and pulled on the rod. After a great battle, I scooped Henry's fish up in the net. 

"Whoa!!! That's a nice fish!" Henry said, with a million dollar smile.

"Hold it up for a picture."

We released the fish and continued fishing. Once again, it took hardly any time for another fish to find Henry's fly. His bobber shot under the water and started swimming away. This time I didn't say anything for a few seconds to see how long it would take for him to notice.

"Henry, where's your bobber?" I asked, as the bobber nearly disappeared it was so deep.

"Oh, I got another one!" Henry set the hook and the fight was on.

The fish shot back into the water after a brief photo. Henry couldn't wait for another one. The third fish took all of 5 minutes to swim by and inhale his chironomid. This time Henry was ready with a forceful hook set.

"I got another one! I'm a fly fishing prodigy!" He said, as the fish nearly yanked the rod out of his hands.

"Fly fishing prodigy? You're funny Henry."

Where did he learn that one? Kids say the funniest stuff.

This day was going better than I could have dreamed. Henry made another cast after releasing the last fish and had to wait almost 30 seconds before another fish took. Henry was getting the hang of things.  I was taking some pictures of Henry fighting the fish when he looked over at me and said, "Ryan put the phone away, we're fishing!"

I laughed. This kid is hilarious. Henry and I were having some serious quality uncle/nephew time today. 

The wind began to pick up, so I thought we should move over to a slightly more sheltered area. We paddled to the new area and began fishing. We fished for about 20 minutes without a take, so I decided we'd head back over to where we started. By now the wind was blowing fairly strong. We paddled to the shore and I walked the boat to the area we needed to go. 

Henry kept commenting on how cool the waders felt as they sucked to his legs in the water.

We got back to the area we started, anchored and threw out a couple lines. The SS Minnow had a small leak and now there was about an inch of water in the boat. Suddenly, a mouse appeared on the gunnel of the boat; likely flushed out of hiding by the deepening water in his home. 

"Hey buddy, just sit tight and we'll get you back to shore." I said to the mouse. 

Henry wasn't even remotely scared. "Let's name him Ralph. He'll be our mascot!" 

Ralph, the new SS Minnow mascot scurried around the gunnel of the boat toward the bow and dove into the water, swimming into the wind toward the shore 50 yards away. 

"Oh no, he's going to drown!" Henry said with genuine concern.

"Don't worry, mice are good swimmers. He'll make it to shore in no time. 

We resumed fishing for another 5 minutes before I noticed something strange come drifting along the side of the boat. Ralph hadn't fared so well in the cold water swimming against the wind. He was still alive but wouldn't be much longer.

"We need to rescue him! I don't want to fish anymore. I want to rescue Ralph!" Henry exclaimed with worry.

I hesitated, knowing how hard it would be to control the boat in the wind once we pulled the anchor, but I knew Henry would be sad if we didn't at least try. I pulled the anchor and we quickly drifted toward the small brown and white waterlogged creature drifting helplessly in the waves. Henry scooped him up in the net and brought him back aboard. Ralph didn't look good. In fact, I wasn't sure he was even still alive. 

I rolled Ralph around a little to see if there was any hope. All I could think to do was compressions on his small chest. I used my pointer finger to lightly press on his chest, knowing this was likely futile. I pressed for a minute or so before stopping. 

"Let's just let him sit in the sunshine for a while and see if he comes around." I said, as we paddled the boat toward shore.

We neared the shore and I noticed Ralph slowly moving his little legs. 

"Henry, Ralph is alive!" 

"Oh yay! He's going to make it!"

We stuck Ralph in a wool sock I had and placed the sock on a rock in the sun. We packed up all our fishing gear before returning to Ralph. Ralph was now slowly moving around.

"Henry, let's go find a place for Ralph to live that's not in a wet boat. We found some pipe nearby in the sun and set Ralph free to live his best life. 

We checked the minnow trap to find 2 minnows of some brownish variety. Henry enjoyed holding them in the palm of his hand and then letting them swim off. 

The brief outing was eventful to say the least. Henry had caught his first fish on the fly rod and we'd saved a mouse from certain death. I think the "Fly Fishing Prodigy", Henry, will be very excited for our next outing.