Ultimate Mid-Winter Break From School!

February 16, 2015

We put on a great day this weekend for a couple of youngsters.  All they wanted to do for their "mid-winter" break from school was to go stay at Red's and float the river!  No video games or any garbage to get in the way of some true American boyhood. How cool is that? First we did some roll casting instruction using the swimming pool at Canyon River Lodge! 

It was a boat-full but the goal was to have fun and we wanted the whole fam dam in one boat.  We had to sacrifice bringing the Red Rider BB Gun and the Nerf football but it was worth it to all float together.  We got Vance, the older of the two boys, working a nymph along the shoreline. Despite high water we fished with total confidence and he had a couple of strikes.  No fish in the morning.  To prevent burnout and a dip in morale, dad took over and hooked a fabulous rainbow after just a few short minutes of casting from the bow.  The energy was alive and it was perfect timing for riverside BBQ!  It was the first riverside BBQ of the year for our crew.


After lunch we kept bopping along downstream and the fishing began to pick up.  We got into a couple of doubles even!




Later in the day after we landed a handful of fish we took a short break from fishing and did some spelunking.  The younger boy, Hunter, wasn't as engaged with the fishing and he kept pointing out little holes in the rocks asking if there was a cave nearby.  I knew just the spot.  So we floated ahead and parked the boat and did some exploring!


After the spelunking expedition we floated on down and put an exclamation point on the day by floating under the eagle's nests and putting another fat fish in the boat!  We took out at Red's and the family got changed and finished up with a nice meal at Canyon River Grill. It was a great day and reminded me how important it is to make the most out of every day.  Even without the great fish this would have been a solid day!



  1. Throughly enjoy posts like this. What a great sounding outing. Thanks for sharing.
  2. My boy Phipps doing big things with the family... I wanna go..
  3. Great to see a coug in training slaying some trout with a fly rod!

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