Sunday Hike to Shellandria

That's what we did today - hiked along the beach to find some shells. Charlie kept getting drawn closer to this mysterious device - Got some stainless hardware salvaged from it. Lots of bait hanging out in pukas... Nice beach day!!!

True Amphibians

We didn't see any fish to speak of during the hike, but we did see a few toads hopping around the trail. And where there are toads, there are tadpoles. We did see tadpoles in copious amounts and Noe proceeded to figure out a way to study them up close - empty Tic-Tac case! That coupled with our hardcore efforts to ensure we didn't pick up any ticks along the way, you could say we had a case of Tick-Tads! I know that was corny - sorry...

Father's Day Hiking

After I got back to the house, we jumped into the truck and drove over to Riverbend Park to hike along the Potomac. We took the Northern path this time to check it out as opposed to the Southern route which we have been on a few times now. By the end of the trip, we got the kids to hike 5 miles! La has some cool pictures up on her Facebook account - butterflies, lizards, cool trees. I was also keeping an eye out for some spots to flyfish from in future outings - I saw three accessible areas where a back cast could be managed with a short wade out. The river was swollen from all the rains we got recently, so the intel gathering was not as good as it could have been, but that's part of the game isn't it???...!!! Fun day and a tough accomplishment for the kids (they minimized the complaints since it was Father's Day)!

Defying Gravity

Cool tree from which to fish and a shot that Marlon took at an angle (but almost looks like I am using the Yamame to hold me on a pretty good lean angle). This is the spot where we saw the snake, the bass and the trout. Next time I'll bring more flies!

Second Dose of the Hike (the fish we caught)

If you have never tried tenkara, you may want to - this terrain was perfect for it. I would have never had the room for a back cast here. And even though these fish are physically small, in spirit they are monsters!

Broadening Horizons

We went for a family hike today and I brought the Yamame Tenkara rod along. The hike was HOT HOT HOT but the kids were troopers! Stopped at several points to see what lived in the waters along this stretch of the Potomac River. Hooked up with mostly a few different species of sunfish, but did lose a bass and I did see some trout (that did not give me the time of day with the scud I presented). La even caught a fish! Marlon and I also saw a bronze snake hanging out in the water along a river bank - we are going to have to get better on our inland aquatic species identification (that's what happens when you transplant salty surfers inland...) - we will make the most of this and we will have lots of fun along the way!