Lake Union, WA  Report - 06-29-2007

Gotta love my smallies! This is my first season ever targeting them and I have had the blessing of catching them the few times that I have been able to go fishing.

I had the chance to take my daughter and nephew who is visiting for a little fishing at Lake Union's (WA State) Ship Canal.

I was bummed that I couldn't take my drop shot rod because its one-piece nature means it can't fit in the car with two kids in the back.  I was forced to use what I deem the worst rod in my line up.

I get my nephew's rod rigged up pretty quickly and by the time I finished, my daughter had changed her mind about fishing.  Personally, I was going to just kick back and coach my nephew on working the drop shot rig, but unfortunately, he doesn't speak English and my Spanish doesn't really cover fishing terms too well.  Since I was unable to communicate what to do, I figured the next best thing to do would be to show him with my rig and have him copy me.

I taught him how to cast a spinning set up by casting mine and he copied me.  Then he copied me as I closed the bail manually and moved the rig a bit and paused.  He followed suit.  We did this a couple more times and well, as luck would have it, the worst rod in my arsenal gave me enough feedback to know I had a decent one on.  I said in Spanish, ¡Lo tengo! I got (have) it!

I felt bad that I got the hit because I really wanted him to have it.  He also declined to bring in the fish and I think it was probably because he wasn't sure what to do.  My daughter declined too.

The smallie put up a good fight but eventually it was brought in.  A three-person family passed by and stopped to see the fish and one of them was nice enough to take this shot.  I caught another smallie about five minutes later while I was trying to show him how to move the semi-slack line only. Arghh!

My regret was that my nephew didn't catch anything by the time we left, but he told me that he still had fun and wants to try again. And that is a good thing.

Smallies can still be had from the bank/shore.  Go get them!

-ib

Great story!

Nice pic, too.

Great way to get the youngin's "hooked" on fishing. My grandson (6) had rather let me hook em and he reels them in but he enjoys it. Just wish he could go more often.

I agree, nice story and nice pic. Nothing like sharing your love of fishing with the kids. Good job---Jim