34-31

Today Mike and I went on a small fishing expedition up Azusa Canyon on the San Gabriel River. The morning started off with a 5:30 a.m. wake up call from Mike, which was just a little bit before my alarm clock was going to do that. I met up with him at 6 and we drove up the canyon. The San Gabriel is also known as The Cholo River. We were greeted by the "lovely" graffiti and garbage throughout our trip. There were a few R.I.P.'s, which I'm sure the dead cholos appreciated. Other than the shame of seeing nature being destroyed, the fishing trip was a success. We didn't wear waders, because it was going to get hot and the water wasn't going to be too cold anyways. Besides, I was wearing an ankle brace and it would have just stretched out my waders. The water was really refreshing throughout the day. We landed 65 fish between us and I didn't fall in. Mike unfortunately can't make the same claim. I think next time I will require him to wear a life vest, just in case. For anyone who has fallen in while fishing, you know what it feels like to do the dance on the slippery rocks and try your best to somehow not hit the water or the rocks. It just doesn't work out and you end up drenched and bruised. However, for the person watching this all occur, the look on the wet-in-the-near-future person's face as this is all occurring can bring a tremendous amount of joy. That was the case this morning. After making sure I wasn't going to have to dive in, and that Mike wasn't hurt I had a good chuckle. We got out of the water a little bit before noon and got to make the walk back to the car with the rocks and sand in our shoes. We also happened upon a dead rattle snake. I know it was dead, because I hit it with a rock. My brother Jed taught me that you must always throw a rock at a rattle snake to make sure it is dead. For some reason I am really accurate when it comes to doing this. So, to sum up the day, we caught over 10 fish an hour, we only came across a couple of people (none of which were fishing), we didn't get bitten by any rattlesnakes, and Mike didn't drown. It was an enjoyable time. Below is a video of one of Mike's monster catches. As a side note, June 7th marks the first of 2 "free fishing days" in California this year. You can fish that day without purchasing a license. I'm taking the young men out, and encourage anyone else to take advantage of the day as well.

p.s. I was the one who caught 34.