I can’t call myself a Bass Master - other than in videogame form - but I can call myself a Trout Tamer after this weekend.

I finally got my fix of mountains and the outdoors this weekend after Melissa and I’s initial plans of a train trip to La Veta on Saturday got the old heave ho, and a camping/fishing trip took its place; definitely a way better way to have gone, me thinks. We loaded up the car and hit the road at 2:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon, headed for South Fork, Colorado and Beaver Creek. As much as living in the dead-center of the San Luis Valley can seem pretty dull at time, it really is pretty awesome to have so many great places for camping, fishing and so much more all so close by. Less than 2 hours after hitting the road, we’d picked up our fishing licenses and found/set up our campsite as close Beaver Creek Reservoir as you can get.

Our initial plan had been to just go fishing on Sunday morning, but getting settled had been so much easier and taken quicker than we thought, so we headed to the reservoir shores right quick to get in some evening fishing. With our poles, plenty of lures and a couple bottles of beer, we staked out our grounds for the evening.

Now, while I was excited to get out and go fishing for the first time, I was also a bit nervous. I wanted so much to enjoy fishing, but I’d never taken the initiative to go on my own before because activities as static and repetitive just aren’t typically my cup of tea - yet somehow I’ve always enjoyed video games…weird.

But after the quick run-thru from Melissa of how to cast, and how tie the lure to the line, I soon found myself really enjoying what we were doing. Cast, reel, repeat a few times. Change lures. Cast, reel, repeat a few times. Change lures. Etc. Some beer sipping and finger pricking on the lures I was changing were mixed in as well, naturally.

Part of what made this seem so enjoyable was that despite the repetition of it all, there was also the sense of anticipation and excitement of “what if I actually get a bite?” Getting snagged on underH20 obstacles certainly kept me on my toes, since having never caught anything I always wondered if maybe I had something for the first couple hours that this was going on. Plus, the view that we had also helped to make the endeavor seem so enjoyable. I don’t think I could go sit by some pond/lake in the middle of the plains and go through the fishing motions, but I don’t know if I’ll get sick of doing so with a view like this:

View of Million Reservoir, a few miles down the road from Beaver Creek Reservoir. Where we stopped on the way back home on Sunday morning to fish for a couple hours.

Our first two hours on the reservoir netted no fish, but upon returing to “our spot” on the bank from a quick trip up the stream that fed into the reservoir, Melissa informed me that she had seen several fish jump in the water recently. On my very next cast, I got my first bite!! However, the greenhorn that I was, I started reeling in and didn’t yank up on the rod, so the hook never really caught and I had lost my first fish. Better to have hooked and lost than to have never hooked at all???

But I need not have worried, because just a few casts later I found my rod bending with another bite. I wasn’t going to let this one go and yanked up hard right away, hooking a rainbow trout securely, and no more than 30 seconds later Melissa had her camera phone out and was snapping this:

MY FIRST FISH!!!!!!

We hooked it up to a leader to keep it fresh in the water, and with thoughts of a fish dinner on our minds, we got back to the task of casting out and enjoying the amazing scenery. And wouldn’t you know it, it didn’t take more than 20 minutes for Melissa to securely hook one as well:

Melissa’s fish - bigger than mine :( But check out that view in the background. Anything is immensely more enjoyable in that kind of setting…even golf might be a tolerable activity there.

Even before she had gotten it out of the water, I was also admitting defeat out loud since hers was bigger than mine. Apparently it doesn’t matter it it’s Wii Fishing, Bass Masters for XBox 360 or real fishing, Melissa will always catch bigger than me. But I didn’t really care, because it was just awesome for us both to have caught something.

With two fish on the leader in the water, we kept fishing for about another 30 minutes before deciding to gut the fish and head back to make fish for dinner. While three fish would have been a great meal, two fish wasn’t so bad for a meal either. Now, gutting the fish was probably about just as cool as catching the fish itself, and something I hope to be doing plenty of before the summer draws to a close.

After the guts had been removed, we hiked back up to the campsite, tossed the fish in some aluminum foil with some Pacifica Clara beer for seasoning, and 20 minutes later had a pretty delish trout dinner before turning in around 10 o’clock.

Since we’d been able to do fish for dinner, we woke up after a not-so-awesome night of sleep and had some Johnsonville brats for breakfast, which were surprisingly excellent as a breakfast food. We then packed up camp, and decided we would head to Million Reservoir (pictured above) before making our way back to Alamosa. It was certainly later in the morning than you can really expect to catch anything, so it was no real shocker to leave Million empty-handed. However, I will never be able to leave any amount of time fishing empy-handed and not feel at least a little disappointed. I may not be disappointed in the experience as a whole, but there will be a piece of me that really wishes I had something in my hand, or had something in my hands that I released, to show for my efforts. I will never be able to go out fishing and expect not to catch anything. That’s like a batter going up to the plate expecting not to get a hit. What’s the point if you don’t at least expect something out of it…Sorry for the mini-rant.

We made our way back to Alamosa and already making plans to head somewhere this upcoming weekend to go fishing, with the Arkansas River up near Salida being one of the more appealing ideas discussed. We’ve also made plans to try and get back up to Beaver Creek Reservoir at least once a week. With it being just a little over an hour away, we could definitely leave after I get off work and make it out for the evening just in time for the best fishing of the evening. Sounds pretty exciting to me, and I can’t wait to really put these annual fishing licenses to use.

AN ACHILLES UPDATE

After a month in Das Boot, I removed myself from the walking boot after work Friday. By the time Melissa and I were walking to the banks to go fishing on Saturday evenning, it was feeling super-good, and not even walking on uneven surfaces the rest of the weekend was causing any discomfort. I even pulled a jog to and from el bano (the bathroom, in Spanish), on Sunday morning - more out of necessity than anything since I didn’t have any other shorts with me - without problem at all. Now, on Monday, its still feeling pretty good. As much as I want to test out with a short jog today, I also don’t want to face being called an idiot by family, friends, and co-workers, so I won’t be trying anything at all until I see the doctor (hopefully a better one than last time) on Wednesday and take any advice/input he gives me. Here’s to some good news..Cheers!

OTHER GOOD THINGS AT THE MOMENT

I’ve got to believe that this week is one of the greatest sporting event weeks of the year, as the College World Series, Wimbledon and the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run are all going on this weekend. All three being events that I don’t have to have much rooted into any of the participants to enjoy watching and following. However, I’m picking Vanderbilt, Rafael Nadal, Li Na, Dave Mackey and Tracy Garneau for the wins.