Hiking/Fishing Monday - June 28th

I may not have caught the biggest fish of the day, though it really may have been, but I did catch the prettiest fish of the day. It was a gorgeous Rainbow with a really bright red stripe. You can see it in the next couple of pics.

Note the strangle hold...she was NOT letting this fish get away! :)

Erica's first fish on a fly rod!

Pics of the lake...it really was a beautiful lake and an even more beautiful day.

This was from the hike out...we went through some burned parts...obviously. :)

Traffic jam...Yellowstone style.

I'm so behind in blogging! When you're posting things from 3 months ago, you know you're behind.

Anywho...these pics are when Dusting, Erica, Shayne & I did a small 3 mile (one way) hike into a lake in West Yellowstone to fish. I can't remember the name of the lake, you'll have to ask Shayne. But, it was a fun hike with Dustin and Erica. The fishing was a little tough at first, but we figured stuff out and then it was fun for everyone.

We caught Grayling and some Rainbows. Erica caught her first fish ever on a fly rod, and Dustin caught his first Grayling ever.

We also stopped at Elk Valley again and actually tried to fish the river that runs through there...I think it's the Yellowstone River. I got my butt totally kicked. There was a breeze that made casting a Parachute Adams in the right place nearly impossible. Shayne didn't have much luck either, but Dustin did hook onto a fish. It was just nice to be there at dusk with two bull elk chillin' in the valley while we fished a gorgeous river.

The Bug stayed at the cabin with Grammy & Papa Pond riding the 4-wheeler around until he fell asleep. It was so incredibly nice to have a grandma and grandpa around to leave him with and know he would be totally ok.

It was such a good day, we've decided to make it a yearly tradition when we go back down for the now Annual Dana & Jonette Pond Reunion.

Arc Lake

See him signing "fish"?  He loves the fish!!

September has been wonderful so far...and it's not only a week into it, but I don't care, there's sunshine.  :)

One day after subbing out at Kenai Alternative High School, Shayne took us all fishing to a little lake about 3 miles from our house.  They stock it with little Salmon and they love those little red balls of power bait.  :)

The Bug LOVED fishing!  Actually he mostly loved netting the fish, he thought he was such a big boy.  It was actually a nice enough day that I was fine with him playing in the water, and you can see from the sequence of pics that he definitely played in the water.  It started with just his feet, but as he ventured further and further into the water I ended up taking his pants off b/c they were so wet...so he ran around in his diaper and had a blast!

I love these pics of him being outside and loving the fishing.  We had so much fun...can't wait to do it again!

Shayne's Fly-out

Shayne was lucky enough to do a fly-out with one of the ER Docs, Bob Leda.  He owns a lodge and a plane and is a pilot and had a spot for Shayne this particular day.  He went with Dr. Chris Mickelson, another ER doc, and then a couple of visiting doc's who are friends with Leda.

Anyway, they went out for a day of fishing for Silver Salmon.  I think Shayne was one of the only ones to catch anything, which I wasn't surprised by.  He saw some incredible country, stuff you can't see in Alaska unless you are in a small plane.

They also had some company with the black bear, but he wasn't too much of nuisance...obviously because Mickelson thought it would be cool to take a pic holding up a Silver with the bear in the pic.

I'm glad Shayne got to do something like this.  He's wanted to go out with Leda for awhile.  It was a beautiful day to go and was definitely a day of memories.