boys fishing weekend

In early June, Grant, Victor, Ethan and me (Troy) went on a rafting trip on the Green River. It's such a great river, I hate to let a year go by without throwing a fishing line into it. It was a memorable trip with some fun times and some grumpy moments we won't get into.

On Thursday night, we drove in and slept at a campsight at dripping springs. These first two pictures are random shots there.

This is us at the raft rental place. We should have examined the raft closer before we left because once we were on the river we started to notice the many, many patches on it. It was a well-used vessel. Well, the evening of the first day on the river (about ten miles from our ultimate take-out the next day), Victor noticed the raft was hissing. We found the leak under one of the patches and pulled out a roll of duct tape and wrapped and criss-crossed pretty much the whole roll on that patch. It held overnight and for the next day, thank heavens.

Out on the river at last. Notice the clear water of the green. Georgeous.

First fish. A nice rainbow on a deep nymph. Fishing from an oar-less raft (paddles only) is no small task, and we tried it only on easy stretches with low traffic from other boats. We only caught two from the boat the whole trip.

The boys caught a snake.

This is our campsight the second night. We signed up for it at the station at little-hole before we left. You can't drive to it, but only float to it and pull out at the river's edge. So we floated with all our gear. A little packed but it was fine.

Pretty brown. We caught several from the shore near our campsight.

Prettier brown. About 17 inches.

Victor took some random shots with the camera. Here is one of dinner. Yes, tortillas and stew warmed up in the can. Not exactly gourmet.

Random shot of the campsight

Random shot of boys' clothes hung to dry.

Last random shot (that we are posting).

Wait, one more. This the boys' bone collection. I don't know what or why.

Good thing we brought the BB gun along. The no shooting while in the raft rule was followed most of the time.

The boys wanted to cook a fish over the fire, so we kept the last one of the day, a big rainbow. Victor threw in some salt, wrapped it in tin foil and cooked it. It was fantastic. It's all about the quality of the fish, and this one was tasty.

Remains of the fish.

The boys wanted the smores experience to be an efficient one. So as they were waiting for the fire to be ready, they set up the assembly line.

I was perturbed to wake up the next morning and find our roll of paper towels completely used up. I was about to call the kids over and grill them to see who had carelessly used them or burned them for fun, and I noticed the toilet-paper was half shredded and some granola bars were chewed open and nibbled on. These articles were all safely stowed in one of the duffel bags, but apparently not safe enough. Rodents had gotten in somehow. I still can't think why they liked the paper towels so much.

Nice brown on the last day of the float.

While I was fishing, the boys explored up a creek and found a cool waterfall.

Caught lizard on Victor's shirt.

Dad proving to the boys he can still be tough. None of them wanted to brave the chilly water for a quick shower.

It was darn cold, but I quickly warmed up.

Still with the lizard.

On the way home, we stopped at the border of Utah / Wyoming for a picture. Victor stood half in and half out. Yes, very original of us.