Before
bed Saturday night, we discussed what we would do on Sunday. Jason had a list a
mile long. I wondered how he could ever get it all done? I asked him if
there would be some time to go fishing? His answer was “YES” and Alayna agreed.
We decided that early morning would be best. So now, it was Sunday morning and
our alarms were going off. We didn’t want to get up.
We slept in a little bit. Even
Alayna did, I was shocked! So we got out of bed at our usual time. We HAD
planned on 6AM-ish. So now we were headed out and it was close to 9AM. We had
to go to Walmart, to get Jason a new reel because last weekend, his broke. We
rushed around, made a pit stop in the potty and then grabbed a few incidentals, headed to the check-out, then
we headed to East Brimfield Lake. We arrived and Jason suddenly realized we
FORGOT OARS for the boat. Alayna’s response was like “ well that’s GREAT :) we’ll
just fish from shore."
That was her plan anyhow, now we would all be together,
on land. Jason wasn’t satisfied with this answer so he said, “nope” we are
going to go to Walmart and pick up some oars. So off we went, when we neared
Walmart Jason decided that he didn’t actually like the oars at Walmart and
decided instead we would simply return home and grab our two SETS of oars we
already had … at home. So we did, we grabbed the oars, grabbed the ice chest
we forgot and the water bottles we also forgot and then jumped in the truck
once again. Being that it was Labor Day weekend when we were at East Brimfield
we noticed that the Lake was pretty crowded. The previous weekend when we were
there, there was quite a bit of traffic and our fishing was not so great. So Jason
did a quick search on his phone and we headed to a different lake. We were
headed to Webster Lake. So we pulled into a side road and found a little cove
and began to unload. I said, well there’s practically no traffic here, that’s
good! I said, “this is Webster Lake?” Jason said, “no, I ‘think’ it’s Little Pond and we are near Thompson, CT, but still in Massachusetts. So the fact that the lake was clear, we went
with it. Alayna was determined to fish from shore so we found a small dock. I
mean, it was a small, broken up, kind of scary-looking dock. I stood on it and
it was sturdy, despite its deplorable looks. So meanwhile Jason was prepping
his stuff and was determined to fish from the boat. I sort of preferred to go in
the boat, but I did not want to leave Alayna alone on shore of course so I
would stay on shore with her. I told Jason, “Alayna won’t go on the boat.” He
said, “…she will, watch.” So he suited up and floated out in the boat. Alayna
and I set up near the deplorable dock. I took a folding chair and set it up to
the side of the dock because really there was only room for one person to sit on the dock. So I set my chair up next to the dock next to a tree but on
the bank.
It was fine… at first. I had to stand up to cast my line out far
enough and then I could let my line out and back up to settle in my chair. It
soon became cumbersome to have to climb out of my chair and down the embankment,
recast my line and then climb back in my chair. I asked Alayna to cast my line
for me and then hand me my pole, but we were just running into issues because
the trees behind us were a hazard and kept snagging our hooks. Meanwhile, Jason
was having a difficult time rowing to drop his anchor out a little ways
from where we were. He was trying to keep it all together but it was evident
that what he was doing, wasn’t really working. He was fighting the current and
the oars had holders so one person ‘could’ row the boat if the holders were
actually attached to the boat…! They were broken though, and previously when we
used the boat, we each had an oar and rowed together that way. Well Jason is
strong (naturally) and was able to manage to row out near us. He dropped his anchor, cast his line and
then lounged back in the boat with his hands behind his head like he had the
whole boat to himself. I was like “what is he doing?”
Alayna said, “he’s trying
to make us jealous.” So I asked Jason if he could take my line and take it out
further in the water. So he was trying to help us and then he started to have
all kinds of trouble again, trying to row and such, by himself. Finally we all had a conversation about it and
somehow we all ended up climbing in the boat with Jason and rowing off TOGETHER.
So Jason was right, he got Alayna in the boat. We rowed out past a float for a
lobster trap and we began casting our line. Within MINUTES Jason snagged a
fish, a large Yellow Perch. Then we fished for about 10 more minutes and we
began to scan around the “pond” to see what other possibilities there were. Way
across the pond from where we were there was a nice little area with a generous
helping of lily pads. We all agreed, that was where we should go. So we rowed,
rowed, rowed our little boat straight out there. Well it was far from straight.
We were fighting the current and still learning to row as a team and the
combination of these two things inevitably got us spun in a circle at least a few
times. So after a little fussing, some giggling and a lot of effort we finally
made it to the lily pads. We cast our line and again, Jason had the first snag!
From there we ended up snagging a total of about 10 fish PLUS Alayna caught a
turtle. Jason and I caught a variety of Perch, but Alayna caught all kinds of
stuff. Small Mouth Bass, Striped Bass, a Water Turtle, a small striped fish of
mystery, and she also caught a few perch. It was pretty fun! So we then headed back home, we grabbed lunch
at Dresser Hill-Clam Box and brought it home and ate outside at our picnic table. After
that we got to work to knock out the things on our to-do-lists. Jason had tons
of yard work and Alayna and I were going to groom and wash dogs and then treat
for fleas. We finished the day completely exhausted. Alayna even fell asleep on
the couch. She only does that if she is EXTREMELY tired! What-A-Day!
