The Perfect Day

June 14th, 2016

"The Perfect Day"

I laid back today and realized, its beautiful outside and my kids have been practically clawing at the walls to go outside so why not encourage the love of the outdoors.... It didn't take long before I walked both my daughters Skylar (2) and Madelyn (8) to the local park.

My wife put Skylar down for a nap and I saw the window of opportunity, Madelyn was getting a bit jaded towards the outdoors I knew some stepping in was needed. I asked her if she'd rather go hiking or fishing and she said hiking so I enacted the perfect plan. If you haven't followed my Facebook you wouldn't know that I have launched a full blown daughter fishing assault this year. Lack of ability to travel and my daughters intense interest concocted the perfect storm of fishing fury.

I knew of just the spot....It was a 2 mile hike to the honey hole. If we made it great, if we didn't it was the hike I promised, win win. Maddy questioned my motives when she saw me grab the worms from the fridge, I said relax you'll understand....you can't expect me to walk past water and not fish! She giggled. I got to talk to Madelyn 10,000x more than I usually do on our 2 mile walk. We got to see deer cross the trail and I showed her that Pennsylvania had some hidden wonders up its sleeve. We arrived at the honey hole and Maddy looked up and said, "I've never been so happy and excited to be fishing, its cool and shady and a break from walking." A well calculated, perfectly enacted evil dad plan. It didn't take long before the stocky trout were receptive to the dangling nightcrawler and I passed Madelyn the rod as she perfect maneuvered her lifer Rainbow Trout, she was pretty stoked and it was contagious. I went on to catch a decent Brown Trout in short order. We were looking for sumo cutlips minnows for Madelyn but they weren't to be found. 

To my dismay a UTV came barreling down the "NO ATV/UTV Trail"...they quickly dumped themselves to my last resort spot. I was a little miffed but didn't led it dissuade me, it was a long walk back. I got to teach Maddy some things about nature, life, and just listen to the carefree world of an 8 year old. Some blowhard kid came speeding down the trail in an ATV blasting us with a dust cloud, a great teaching example of human nature. Maddy has a terrible fear of bees. I asked her out of everything she saw today the various bugs, wasps, bees, birds, deer, the poison ivy what went out of its way to ruin our day? She keyed in fast and said "quad rider"......That I said, is why I go fishing to get away from the "quad riders" of the world. We hiked another 2 glorious nature filled miles. I'm pretty sure I got to lay eyes on my first ever flock of Cattle Egrets, Maddy was as pumped as I was......the rest of the day followed suit and came to a close as one of those rare cherished moments.