Fishing Mentor For A Day?

Welcome to the inaugural post of Trout For Brains!  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you visit again.  Most of my posts on this blog will be either a quick string of photos, a fishing tip, a fishing trip, or a gear review.  For this first one though, I thought this weekend's cause was a good one to cover.

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Instead of fishing this weekend, I volunteered to take some kids from the Boys and Girls Club of SLC onto the ice and hopefully get them into some fish.

The first annual "Doug Miller Tribute Perch Party" took place at Rockport Reservoir on Saturday and several organizations came together to make it happen.  The Boys and Girls Club of Salt Lake was expected to bring about 40 kids and they needed volunteers to take them fishing.

Everyone met at the boat ramp and got their kids prepared to go.  Several companies and people donated time, money, clothing, and equipment for the kids.  Just two days prior to the event, I approached some people at work about possibly donating (I work for PUGSGEAR), to which they responded generously.  Every kid got a pair of PUGS Polarized sunglasses, plus we were able to provide 20 pairs of fingerless mittens and 20 knit beanies as well.

The donation was enthusiastically received and it was really good to be a part of that.

Both my rods were lent out the whole time and the 3 kids I took ended up getting skunked.  It's a shame, but I guess that type of thing can be expected when you have 300+ people in the same general area.

Leaving the main group seemed like a bad idea, since I was responsible for the safety of these kids and they always seemed to want to break for the food tent anyway. ;D

Even though only a few of the kids (over 30 came) caught a fish, it was still great to get out and let them experience something new/positive.

Here are some photos:

It was pretty busy out there today!

Thanks to Adam Eakle and his cameraman (KSL Outdoors with Adam Eakle - popular local outdoors show on TV) for their involvement in this as well.  Many of us were interviewed briefly and there may be some coverage of that sometime sooner or later.

Here's my group of kids:

It was dreadfully slow though.  No bites for us.

Tim Gorman (local forum member) was kind enough to bring a fishing pole to send home with each of the kids.  They were all very excited for those.

Great fun.  Thanks to everybody who helped out.


BTW, Deer Creek Reservoir is finally frozen.  4 inches!  I just had to stop and try for a little while.  1 bite, no hookup.  Ah well.

What a day!  Thanks to everybody who helped out.