When someone says Tony Grove Lake to me, I immediately think about fishing.  It’s always pretty good fishing for planted trout and a breakfast of trout and fresh fried potatoes just hits the spot for me.  Let’s do it!

So, our second day of camping at Tony Grove lake finds us with a whole afternoon of nothing to do but go fishing with the kids.  Brandon, Mitch and I can handle six kids can’t we?  Sure.  Let’s gather up our gear and get going.

All the poles were rigged while we were in camp and I’m not going to hold any secrets back.  The main line is rigged with a clear plastic bubble and held on that line with a swivel.  Then about 18 inches of leader and a number 10 hook.  We are going to be using powerbait as our bait as these fish usually like that stuff.

Once we are ready to go we head on down the trail.

No wasting time, Let’s Go Fishing

Upon arrival at the lake we have to cram all of us on a small piece of shoreline, but that will be alright.  The adults will do the casting and should keep the lines far enough apart to allow for everyone to fish.

Not a lot of shoreline for us

I had been fishing earlier in the day with little Chase and we found that Garlic flavored powerbait was pretty good.  At least the two of us had had three bites in less than 15 minutes using it.  So I loaded up anyone who wanted to try it with some.  Brandon in the meantime was loading up the other end of the fishing crew with his Chartreuse colored powerbait.  It will be a good test as 4 of us had mine on and  4 had Brandons on.

First Bite!  Addie with a nice big trout, caught on none other than Garlic flavored bait!

Addie’s First Fish Ever

The next bite came off Chartreuse bait as Sydnie lands a trout.  I say that because it wasn’t very big, but we had to keep it because of the fish swallowed the bait.  I didn’t get a picture of Sydnie with any fish!  What is wrong with me?  I do remember that the action was fast and furious and she was the first to catch her limit of 4 fish and had to stop fishing.

Her sister Addie was the first with 3 fish and was trying to catch her 4th before anyone else.  But it just didn’t work out that way did it Addie?

Then it’s Addie again!  No wait, Cody has one on!  Hey!  It looks like Addie has the fish, but no, maybe it’s Cody that has it.  WHAT!  They BOTH have one on!

Double Catch! Cody and Addie!

By now it looks like all the kids are switching over to Chartreuse colored bait!  Brandon’s bait is out doing mine.

Brandon told me he studied real hard as to what color bait to bring and had decided on “Lime Green” but the store he was in didn’t have any, and so he bought the Chartreuse.

All the kids were using it and catching fish after fish with it.  McKenzie said to her dad, “Dad.  Lime Green is so ‘yesterday'”!  HAHAHAHA!  I laughed like crazy at that one!

The order at which the fish were caught by now is so out of whack.  I will just post up pictures and let it be.  Sorry again Syd, I just never did get a picture of you with a fish, even though you caught 4 of them!

Conner with his first fish of the day!

Cody with another!

Addie is seen here fighting a big one in!

Kenzie is trying to land a fish

So, as Chase is opening one of the last packages of Skittles, his cousin McKenzie is battling her first fish toward shore.  Dang!  It spit the hook.  But her spirits did not stay down long!

KenzieFightsFish

Kenzie with her fish!

And when all of the water quit splashing around us, the kids had caught 16 fish and were ready to go back to camp and get them cleaned up for tomorrows breakfast!

Good job kids!  Us three adults had to keep tending to taking fish off , baiting up and casting out and so our catch rate was pretty much zero.  Oh, Brandon caught a itty bitty one, but I don’t want to elaborate on it here.

Nice catch guys!

And while back at camp, Conner decided he would clean them all if he was shown how to do it.  And then Sydnie joined in with an “I want to clean some”!  And so, the two of them took care of all the knife work and all the kids cleaned at least one, while Conner and Sydnie did the rest.  Excellent job everyone!

I’m not sure who had the most fun.  I missed a video of McKenzie with her first fish on and the crowd was going crazy yelling for her to win the battle with the fish.  Even other fishermen down the shore line were yelling and people passing by on the trail above us were yelling for her.  The fish got off before I could get my video camera going.  It was a great audience!

Thanks for the memories!

Bears Butt

August 12, 2012