The One That Got Away

The One That Got Away
By: Keyghan Reed



Every year we go somewhere different for summer vacation. It's usually a small get away that's about a week long. On this particular summer I chose to go trout fishing at Bennett Springs. My grandpa and I had gone fishing in different ponds before, but this way my first time in a river. My grandpa is blind and that makes it hard to find an activity that we can do together, but he can still fish. If grandpa is in a clear area, he can cast out and feel when the fish strike the line. The first thing I noticed when we finally arrived at Bennett Springs was how rapidly the water was moving. It kinda freaked me out considering we were going to be standing in it.

When we pulled up to the main office to get our tags, I noticed these huge cement walkways on the other side of the parking area. I asked my grandpa what it was and he said it was a hatchery for the fish.
I went over to look and I couldn't believe how many fish there were in that small of an area. The fish are raised in the hatchery where they are sorted by age and size. The licenses that are sold to the fishermen are then counted and the appropriate amount of fish are released accordingly. Everyone started commenting on our shirts when we went into the main office, we all had on a different m&m shirt and people thought it was hilarious. We had a lot of fun in there, until it started to rain. When it started raining I freaked out. I knew that we couldn't fish if it was storming, luckily it stopped the next morning.

The next morning we got there and found a nice clear spot that was easy to get to. When the bell chimed I cast into the water using the bait we bought the day before and I started to see more and more people pull out fish. I just kept waiting and casting until I decided that it might be the spot that I was in. So I moved over to a spot upstream. When we got there I spotted a little girl that looked like she was about seven years old. I was watching her for a minute when she suddenly yanked on her line and pulled out a trout that was almost as big as she was. I felt so foolish out there with nothing.

After lunch I went out into the water to try again. This time I did something even more ridiculous. I put a treble hook into my pocket when I was on land and I got it stuck in my pants. It took a lot of time and a lot of maneuvering with my knife, but I finally got the hook out. It was an extremely embarrassing production that took a large chunk of time out of fishing. When I finally got my hook into the water I was freezing. My legs were blood red and shriveled and I was really starting to get tired. I had been out there for seven hours and I was getting frustrated then the wind started to pick up. The wind was throwing branches into the water and I decided it was time to get out for a while. I went and talked to some of the guys in the tackle shop until the wind died down and then I returned to the water.

I was just about to give up when I got a really good bite. The fish was big, and it was strong. I was fighting it as much as I could. We were going at it for a while when things took a turn for the worse. The line snagged on a rock under the water. I was afraid I was going to have t cut the line when in a last ditch effort I yanked on the line and untangled it from the rock. I then reeled in my line to see the fish had gotten away in the process. I was upset at first, but then I remembered that I was there to have fun with my grandpa. We had a lot of fun on the trip, even though we didn't catch anything. A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of doing anything else as long as I'm doing it with my grandpa.