The annual fathers and sons campout was held May 13th and 14th at Mingus Lake near Jerome Arizona. You can Google Map Mingus Lake, Arizona and pull up the aerial photograph. Mingus Lake is at elevation 7,000 feet and temperatures very a nice 49 degrees overnight. Mingus Lake is stocked with trout. The fishing report for Mingus Lake states that during very dry months, the lake level can get so low that it cannot sustain fish life. Its not like fly fishing in the high Uintas, or even the Middle Fork of the Ogden River, but we decided we would give it a shot. I bought my first fishing license in eight years and some cheap fishing rods at Walmart. Walmart also sells green worms that have florescent green blood – odd, but figured it would work.
We got out of Phoenix late. I wanted to be out by 2:00, but I was in charge of breakfast for the ward the next morning. This combined with a lunch obligation to by ex-Maricopa County coworkers, I was busy. We quickly set up camp. Soren rode in the car holding his fishing rod and was carrying the rod around camp showing everyone his “Model 202” fishing rod. He was pretty proud of it. He had been looking forward to fishing, so even though it was getting late we ran up to the lake before eating dinner. It took a little while to get the new fishing gear into the water. Had to tie all the knots, thread the line, cut the bait, and cast out. The wind was blowing toward us, so our bait could not stay deep enough for long. We walked to the other side of the lake and cast in. Within minutes, Soren hooked and landed his first catch, a 4-inch (that’s generous) cat fish. It was not the epic battle I wanted to film, and it was landed before I could get the camera out, but he was so happy with it. He was able to recognize that his bobber had been tugged under water and that he needed to reel fast. He wanted to run back to camp to share with everyone what he had caught.
Within 10-minutes I had my fist catch, I think it was the same fish that Soren had caught. Sorry for the pic quality, but I had to take it myself.
By this time it was dark and we went back to get dinner ready. A fire ban had been passed the previous morning, so we were only able to cook over a gas stove. We went all out with Italian sausage soup, but Soren refused to eat. He did not have one bite of dinner and did had no desert. He did go into his annual pre bedtime melt down. Ashley and I really thought he would have grown out of it this year “I miss mommy and Svea, I don’t want to sleep in a tent, I want to sleep in my own bed, I choose to go home, I don’t want to fish again.” Same drill as every year. Eventually he went to sleep. I didn’t know how the next morning would go, but when I woke up, Soren had his hand on my back and he said “Daddy, I am ready to try fishing again.”
After breakfast, which Soren refused to eat we went back to Mingus Mudhole to fish. We tried worms, but they were not hitting. The people around us were having some good success catching trout on power bait. Luckily, our Elders Quorum President, Tyler Angle was there and he had some power bait. We started using it and had some really good success. I think we caught 5 trout in about two hours of fishing. Most I would hook, and then get tired and pass the rod to Soren. He would reel it in. It was pretty funny, we caught 5, a priest in our ward, Jonathan Santos caught 3, and Tyler who supplied the bait caught nothing even though we were standing next to each other and casting to the same location. Soren was not bored at all, and attentively monitored his bobber the whole time. At the very end, he was more interested in practicing casting, but he did not want to leave. We made it back to camp, packed up and headed home.
(Notice in the 4th picture down, I am taking the hook out of one fish while Soren is reeling in another)
So – check fishing off on Soren’s list of new experiences. We will have to do it again. The problem is the Sentra does not hold much camping gear, making family camping difficult. Soren asked if we were going to go camping by the caves again. That was a trip that we took last September. Its nice that he has these memories of campouts and adventures that we have had together.
