I don’t know why I never thought of this, as a kid or as an adult. When mom asks what you want to do for your birthday, the correct answer is fishing. And on this day I was happy to take out Hudson and friends for an adventure on Shortt’s Lake to celebrate Hudson’s birthday.

On any guided trip I always start my day at least an hour early to allow time to rig rods, sort lifejackets, power up electronics, and get some coffee into me before guests arrived. Having met Hudson before I knew he’d be motivated to get started so I let his mom know to bring him down early and I’d get him to help out around the boat. And he almost beat me to the boat launch. We had an hour to get geared up which left lots of extra time to make some casts around the lily pads for some early pickerel action.

The party started when Hudson’s friends arrived. We did a quick run through the boat rules, we fit everyone’s life jackets, and we fit the absolutely epic snack trays into the cooler for later.

Our 4 hour outing flew by, we spent lots of time shallow, we did some deep trolling and casting, and occasionally we just drove the boat real fast just because it’s fun. Whatever put smiles on the kids faces, that’s what we went for.

As for that snack tray, the kids put a pretty good dent into that. Oreos were definitely a hit, the popcorn, Pringles and goldfish close behind, the veggie sticks didn’t handle the humid air or the cooler for some reason and were reportedly stale. We’ll keep that in mind when recommending snacks in the future. Unfortunately I have to report that part way through the day we once again ended up with goldfish crackers in the carpet of the boat, that’s 2 years in a row now we’ve made a mess with Goldfish crackers. I’m still pursuing that Goldfish Crackers sponsorship though because they’re delicious, and I will never complain about vacuuming the boat after a trip as long as it’s all smiles during the outing.

Back to the fishing, I want to hilight my favourite photo of the trip. Before that though, Hudson, Ben and Emmett were a blast to have in the boat, these kids were loving the experience of being out there, the fish caught were just a bonus. The fish we saw and didn’t catch were an even bigger bonus because that’s when we all got most excited was when the aggressive pickerel caused a commotion around the boat. Now for this picture, I very regularly catch smaller bass or pickerel and just unhook them and toss them back into the water without a second thought. It’s fun to catch them for sure, but after years of catching pickerel an average fish isn’t picture worthy, and we don’t want to extend the fish’s time out of the water unnecessarily. We definitely took a few photos of some of the larger fish and some of the boy’s first fish, but this was Hudson’s first fish of the day and he was more interested in getting the fish safely back into the water and getting back to casting than worrying about a photo of a small pickerel. That’s a seasoned veteran fisherman move right there, and I’m happy to see it. Also note, that’s a baitcaster in Hudson’s hand, and he’s a pro with it. And by pro I mean he nails casts at ease and every once in a while he spins out a birds nest and spends a minute picking it out before getting right back to casting. The only difference between Hudson and myself is I typically swear when I get a birds nest while Hudson does not (yet… he’s a fisherman, and the swearing will unfortunately come)

At least once a year I will make note that for new anglers we have lip grippers available on the boat to help with quick photos. We will always be extra careful with larger fish, but for average size pickerel and bass it causes less harm to have control of the fish and lift it for a quick picture with grippers than to wrestle with the fish with bare hands and risk dropping it in the boat. Especially when we’re dealing with inexperienced and usually slightly scared youngsters trying to get their best photos.

At the end of our outing we returned to the boat launch to a great setup of pizza and cake and presents which the boys dove into while I took a couple of the younger brothers out for a quick boat ride. I left the kids with a lure each as my own contribution to the party, and I hope a few memories of a fantastic day on the water with these kids. And Happy Birthday Hudson, hope it was a great one!

Team photo!