Daddies and Daughters...and Why I Love Trout

During the little crisis I described in my previous post, while I was scrambling around the bed of the truck, trying to grab the slimy, floppy fish, I noticed their beautiful markings. It made me think about how I have always had a fascination with trout. It's nice to catch a catfish, bass, or whatever, but I love catching and eating trout! Fresh trout fried in butter....yummmm.

I started to reflect on why I always have a specific craving for trout fried in butter, and I thought of my first memory of eating trout prepared this way...

One Friday evening, when I was about seven, my dad was in the living room, setting up his tackle box. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was going to the Kern River to go fishing. Of course, being seven, my automatic reply (which would have been the same whether he was going to store, going to the park, or going to the dump), was, "Can I go?????!!!!" I assumed the answer would be no, but it was my seven-year-old duty to ask. He looked at me and said, "Get your fishing pole and sleeping bag. I'm leaving at 4 in the morning, so you'd better be ready." After the shock wore off, I ran out to the garage and got my fishing pole and sleeping bag. The next morning, we left bright and early (actually, I guess it was dark and early) at 4am, with two fishing poles, two sleeping bags, a tackle box, a skillet, and an ice chest with beer, RC cola, and a stick of butter.

I don't actually remember the next part, but my dad has told it so many times, it seems like I remember it. The first day we were there, we each caught our limit pretty early (the limit was ten fish each). There were a couple of young guys camping next to us, and my dad started talking to them. They hadn't caught anything all day (or maybe they had only caught one fish each, I don't remember). They saw the long string of fish my dad was cleaning and asked how many days we had been there. He told them that we had just gotten there that morning, and we had each caught our limits by lunch time. They looked at him and said, "The little girl, too???" He said, "Yep!" Then he invited them to eat with us, since there was no way the two of us could eat twenty fish. He fried up the fish in butter, and it was one of the best meals of my life! I have never been able to duplicate the flavor of that fresh trout fried in butter at a campground at the Kern River....or, at least my memory of it.  Actually, it probably wasn't butter, it was probably Blue Bonnet margarine.  :-)

But I don't think the butter was the secret ingredient. I think the secret ingredient was the special attention I received by spending the entire weekend with just my dad, and the pride I heard in his voice when he told those guys that his little girl caught her limit that day. I do still remember sleeping in the back of the truck, looking up at the stars and listening to the sound of the river that night.

That is one of my best memories of growing up. A year or two later, my dad took my younger sister deep-sea fishing. I don't want to discount all of the time and energy my mom put into raising us, and the special times we've had with her. But I think for a little girl to spend a weekend, a day, or even an afternoon with just her dad...it's a really great experience and I think it does a lot for her self esteem. So, for any of you dads who have little girls, I encourage you to find some time to spend alone with your daughter, doing something that is special to the two of you. I'm sure it will be a memory that she will always cherish.

Hmmm...I wonder if my sister has a special love of barracuda???  ;-)

There are no pictures of that trip (a camera was not in the list of necessities on that trip), but here are some fish-related pictures from my childhood.

I was about three here - "helping" my dad clean his fish

My mom, my sister and me in the mountains near Bishop, CA

Fishing with my sister

This one's not really from my childhood, but I like the picture.

My helper "cleaning" the brown trout I caught on the Arkansas River

A Fish Story

About a month ago, I decided it was time to get more fish.  I had cleaned out the tank, just in case there was any fish disease (even though I was 99% sure the fish deaths were due to user error) and cycled the tank. 

I made the trip to Liley Fisheries in Boulder to pick up 50 - 2"-4" rainbow trout.  Boulder isn't really too far from Colorado Springs, but going through Denver - AHH!!!  What a headache.  It seems more like L.A. every time I have to drive through there.  Although, at least when traffic stops in Denver, there's usually a reason for it.  It just might take you an hour to drive the ten miles to find out what the reason is.  Anyway, the point is that picking up the fish is pretty much a journey.

I arrived at Liley and the nice man there filled up my fish "tank" (trash can) with water, poured in the fish, and I was off.  I got about 3/4 of the way home when I decided to pull off the freeway and get a soda. When I pulled off, everything was fine until I pulled out from the stop sign.  That's when I found out that I had not properly secured my cargo.  The barrel fell over, dumping all of the water AND the fish in the bed of the truck!!!  I went about a half mile and pulled into a Safeway parking lot.  The baby fish were flopping all over the bed of the truck.  I climbed into the bed, set the barrel upright, and tossed all of the fish into the empty barrel.  Even though I figured they would all be dead, I ran into the store (my pants were soaking wet with stinky fish water BTW), bought eight gallons of distilled water, ran back out to the truck and poured the water into the barrel.  At this point, I was thoroughly discouraged, and decided that I was going to give up the fish part and just do hydroponics because I couldn't handle another four-hour round trip to get more fish.

When I got home, I dragged the barrel out of the truck, trying to figure out what to do with it, when I noticed one little shadow moving around near the surface of the water. I started taking out dead fish and noticed that there were still several fish struggling, but still swimming and breathing.  I scooped the live fish into their new home, but judging by their appearance, I didn't expect them to survive more than an hour or two.  I had to take my son to youth group, so I changed and left, expecting to find a bunch of dead fish floating at the top of the tank when I got home.  When I got back home that evening, I was shocked to see fifteen fish swimming around the tank, looking nice and healthy.

One month later, those same fifteen fish are still alive and well.  At the time of my fish disaster, I would have been pretty happy if just one or two fish had survived, but to have almost 25% of the original 50 fish survive for at least ten minutes out of water, and survive the stress of the ordeal...that still amazes me!  My miracle fish are getting fat and sassy, as you can see in this video.  The water has been too cold for algae, so it's a lot clearer than it was in the last tank.

On the plant side of the house, not much activity until lately.  Even though I added some fluorescent grow lights, the water and air temperature in the room were too cold.  The dog door in the room had a little strip of rubber around the edges that gets pulled off when the dogs come in the room.  For most of the winter, the "arctic" air from outside was blowing in through this gap in the door.  A few weeks ago, my husband replaced the dog door, so the room stays a lot warmer.  Plus, I think (hope) the sub-zero temperatures are gone for the year.    Here are some pictures of the plants.

Plants look a lot greener with the extra light - before, they were a sickly yellow color

Broccoli

Cilantro

 The beans below are a good example of how important temperature is when growing plants.  When I planted bush beans this summer, they sprouted in about three days, then grew like crazy.  I planted these several months ago.  It took 2-3 months just to see sprouts, and these have been about the same size for at least two weeks now.  Not that the water temperature is closer to 50+ Fahrenheit, I think the plants will start to grow.

Bush beans