Celebrating 10 Years with 10 Trout

Asher's first fish of the morning, this brook trout, took an Ugly
Bug I had tied with fur from a stuffed dog named "Shad Fly."

The final trout I caught yesterday afternoon was nothing special, except that it was number 10 for the day. Asher and I been on nine for a while and really hoped for one more. We were celebrating Asher's 10th birthday, so finishing with 10 fish just seemed right. We were getting hungry and little chilly, though, and it was getting kind of late. I'd called last cast and truly was not planning to make another, and I probably had 10 feet left in the retrieve when the fish hit.

Trout No. 10 for the day came on the
called final cast of the afternoon.

I had wanted to take Asher to a trout stream, instead of doing the regular local pond outing, for his birthday, but on the actual day I was battling a prohibitive bug and he was on his way downhill quickly. Yesterday, one week later, we both felt a lot better, so we made our birthday trout outing and had a big time climbing rocks, wading in the river, enjoying spectacular fall colors and even catching some brook trout and rainbow trout.

If you happened to read my post about "Shad Fly," the stuffed dog I recently bought from Goodwill for $1, a jig tied from her fur produced Asher's first trout of the day, which is the one pictured above. My best success came on an Ugly Bug that combined Kenneth fur and peacock hurl.

We capped the day with a dinner stop at a Chinese buffet in Murphy.