We received the award for....

No, this post has nothing to do with the Heisman trophy award...or any sport for that matter. We gave ourselves the award for officially being the worst bloggers in this crazy world we call the internet!

Seriously, I don't know how everyone has time to blog...I'm starting to think I don't manage my time very well. There is a good possibility I just have too much going on as well!

Anyhow, it seems I think about blogging a lot...and I take lots of pictures to post on my blog :) The pictures are all just sitting on my phone instead of on my blog! So, if you feel like I'm "cram blogging"....I probably am. I'm just trying to live up to our "award"...

Golden Yellow

I absolutely adore nature... Everything about it is amazing. I love to look at it, play in it and to be surrounded by it.

This particular tree is just our good ol' apricot tree in the backyard...but somehow it seemed magical this evening. The day after I took these pics it snowed and the leaves all fell off. I'm so glad I captured it's "glow".

Colors in nature are awesome...and so is our puppy :) She snuck into a few pics somehow!

Christmas Before Thanksgiving?!

Ok guys...this has gone far enough!! Don't get me wrong...I love Christmas...but it's not until the end of December... What in the world are people thinking putting up...AND TURNING ON their Christmas lights November 6th?

It's kind of funny because after the first person turns theirs on....it's like a race for everyone else to put theirs up and turn them on. We do usually put ours up around Turkey Day....but we don't EVER turn them on until after the November holiday....

ENJOY THANKSGIVING FOLKS!!!!

RAGNAR Relay in Vegas

I'm all about experience and opportunities! I had the opportunity to be a part of a 12 woman team in the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay. You may have heard of the Wasatch Back race which starts in Logan and ends in Park City. The ladies in my neighborhood were putting together a team for the Vegas race and asked if I wanted to participate. They probably thought they were getting a great runner when they asked a racquetballer to join their team.

Unfortunately for them I'm not a fabulous runner! I decided to do the race in the hopes I might turn into a runner after training for the relay. The training part of stuff wasn't as fun or easy as I thought it might be. Let's just say the variety of things I do to train for racquetball holds my attention a lot easier!

After learning how to "start training" for a running race I started to enjoy my runs. I actually have a good time out running and don't dread 5 or 6 miles anymore!! The only part that keeps me from running a ton is the fear of killing my knees. I do prefer my bicycles to my feet for that reason. I'm hard enough on my body while playing racquetball...I don't need to add anymore insult to my inuries... :)

The whole week before we left for Vegas I started getting a bit nervous. This was funny because I don't experience nerves like this before racquetball events anymore. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to finish my legs or that I would be super slow...or that I would just suck!

I was runner #6 out of 12 so my first leg was about 3 hours into the race. It was, perhaps, the most beautiful part of the whole race. I ran up the road and into the Valley of Fire. I felt great and kept a decent pace up the hills. I came over the top of one of the hills and was mesmerized by the red sandy hills in the valley! It was gorgeous... This leg was only 5.2 miles but it was all uphill. My team was awesome! Every half mile or so they would pull the vehicle over to give me water and spray me with more water. It was awesome and I felt pretty pampered! My poor husband is going to be required to drive next to me and spray me with mist while I run now :)

Jason caught up with us when I had about a mile and a half to go. He actually parked the car and ran the last mile or so with me in his jeans. I thought he was going to bake to death in the Valley of Fire!

I got to the exchange point and our other van of six wasn't there yet. We waited for a few minutes and then we decided I should just keep running and have them catch up when they catch up... They caught me before I finished the first mile.

After I got done we stopped at the next 6 potty stops because the water/recovery drinks were going right through me.

We went to the next exchange point, got some real food and tried to sleep in a park. We were one of three groups in the park when I fell asleep. When I woke up there were no spots to lay down. It looked like a homeless park with a permanent line for the restrooms.

My next leg was around 12 or 1 am. I was running 5.8 miles on a trail next to lake Mead. I was a little disappointed it was night time because I'm sure the scenery was gorgeous! I was nervous about running on a trail without support or anybody to honk as they passed so J said he would run alongside me.

The trail turned out to be fabulous and paved! J still ran the trail with me which was nice because I wanted to walk a few times but he wouldn't let me :)

The next morning I felt nauseous and sick. I wasn't the only one in our van who felt crappy though. Needless to say....lots of running, crappy food, and no sleep is not a good combination! One team name was "eat, run, poop". Kind of a funny play on the words "eat, run, sleep" but it is definitely true!!

My last leg was only 2.8 miles but I felt soooo yucky. I didn't know how I would do it. The runner before me was not doing so hot either... She started to have some chest pain but she kept telling us she was ok. Finally we made her get in the van and I started running to take over for her. Shortly after Diane got out and relieved me so I could finish getting ready for my leg.

I was soooo glad to be done with my part of the race! Our other van was waiting for us at the exchange and we gladly handed off the last part of the race to them to finish.

Most of the ladies on my team did this race to get the "Saints to Sinners" medal. You could only get this medal if you ran the Wasatch Back in Utah (Saints) and the Las Vegas (Sinners) races. The medal was pretty sweet....but I'm not sure it's worth 180 miles twice!!! One side had a bottle opener and said, "Beer, Beer" and the other side was a bottle opener and said, "Rootbeer".

Our team name was "Run for Your Life" and our theme was Saints and Sinners. Our team found Halloween outfits at walmart that were devils and angels. They were t-shirts with halos and horns. I, of course, was a devil :) We got some funny looks with our outfits...but they were fun.

There was a really sad story from this experience. A young man was getting out to support his wife, who was running her leg, and he was hit by a drunk driver :( It made me reflect on how precious this life is and how quickly it can change. He left behind a young wife with three young kids. Our team donated some money to a fund set up for his family. If you would like to donate (anything will help) you can do so at any Zions Bank branch or through this link: http://www.jerandmin.com/

I made sure to tell my husband how much I love and appreciate him and all he does! Make sure you do the same for your loved ones :)

I'm not sure I will be doing a ton of these relays but it was definitely a unique experience!!

October MTB

This year was a bit crazy as far as weather is concerned. It stayed warm for an incredibly long time... A few years ago, the day after Halloween, J and I were skiing in the back country at Brighton in 4 feet of powder and this year, that same day, I was riding my road bike up Provo canyon. I suppose Utah is known for this type of craziness...

This year we got a lot of mountain bike riding in...and it continued until the snow fell. This mid-October day we were riding in the mountains and J was in shorts and a t-shirt!

Koda in front...where she loves to be....

I was riding so fast that the picture might be a little blurry :)

Jason and the puppy....

Snow on Mt. Timp...we think it was from an upper elevation storm...but could still be from last year?

Overall, an amazing day for a ride!!!

Canoe Trip Through the Eyes of a Non-Fishaholic

I hope you enjoy a little summary of our canoe trips. It's a bit lengthy...it's worth making it to the end!!

Canoe Trip 2009

I know Jason posted some awesome posts about the canoe trip…but I think we need a little different perspective than he can provide. Jason is like a little kid on Christmas day when it comes to fishing. He absolutely LOVES to be out fishing whether he is getting bites or not. Therefore, you are going to see the canoe trip through rosy colored glasses.

My only disclaimer to what I am writing (just so you understand that my glasses aren’t so rosy colored when it comes to fishing) is that I haven’t been too fond of the canoe trip in the past.

The first year we went the river was so high and muddy that we didn’t hit one rock the whole time and we couldn’t see an inch into the water. If you have been on the James River in Virginia (Zach) you will know that it is impossible to canoe downstream and not hit a rock…impossible! Needless to say…we didn’t catch any real fish that year either. We caught ONE fish…and you can’t really call it a fish because it was a blue gill (sunfish). We did try to fillet the 6” fish and we had ONE fish nugget for the fish fry. I was so bored sitting on the canoe in the hot sun for 3 days that year. I took pictures of flowers, fishing lures, Jason, Pops, John but no fish. I died of boredom and read every piece of reading material we had. John hasn’t come on a canoe trip since (I’m assuming) because he doesn’t think there are actually fish in the James River!

The next two canoe trips we went on (yes, J talked me into going on another one) we did catch fish and did have a fish fry! Geoff went one year and Zach was the fourth the other year. I fished for a few hours each day and left most of the good spots and large fish to the boys. I got a lot of reading done and worked on my bad suntan lines. I was pretty bored and was annoyed that Jason was so focused on fishing for 8 hours a day that he wouldn’t hold a conversation with me. I know…poor me. I guess you’re supposed to be quiet when you fish…but I don’t think it makes much difference. I just think it’s a guy thing…they don’t multitask like women do!

Memories that stick out from those two canoe trips include: 1. Jason catching a citation worthy fish! It was over 22” and around 5 lbs (I don’t remember the exact measurements). It was at the end of the trip and we could see the bridge where we take out when he caught it. 2. My tent flooded one night. I woke up in 6-8 inches of water in the morning…I didn’t even wake up as my tent was flooding! The worst part is that the guys set my tent up…in a low spot. 3. I always remember being exhausted at the end of the trip…

Last year I went again…I’m a glutton for punishment! The first day was pretty nice and it was looking to be a pretty good canoe trip by J’s standards. I read, painted my nails and hung out. I did catch a few fish but I couldn’t tell you how many. The second day the rain started coming down in sheets and it was cold. Luckily we were prepared with rain ponchos thanks to Pam. We still got soaked and were chilled to the bone. Of course, J wanted to keep fishing the whole time because the fishing would be great. We stopped on some private property to camp that night because it was getting dark and we weren’t close to our planned camping spot. The next morning Pops’ tent was flooded. I figured I could laugh because I had the same experience the prior year. It’s not a fabulous way to wake up.

By the end of the trip I’m not so sure J and I were on talking terms. I wanted to paddle as fast as possible to the take out spot…but, you guessed it, the boys wanted to fish the rest of the way in. Of course it was raining the last day as well. I guess you could say it was a memorable trip!!

This year J told me he bought tickets to go to Virginia to visit Mom and Pops. I told him I was excited to go hang out for a bit. Then, he told me he wanted to do a canoe trip while we were there and Pops was in the process of looking for a fourth person. My heart sank as I wondered if I could survive another year on the James River. The question wasn’t really could I but instead did I want to survive another year on the James??

I posed this question the most amicable way I knew how…I said, “J, maybe it would be better for you and Pops to do the canoe trip without me so Pops doesn’t have to go alone this year? I mean, I’ll go if you really want me to…but I have no problem hanging out with mom for a few days while you guys are gone. Besides, she could probably use the company so she’s not home alone again.”

J replied, “Babe, I don’t want to go without you! I really think you should come this year!” With that, my mouth said yes but my brain was trying to say HECK NO!!!

I was dreading the start of the longest three days of my life on the river. Pops and J did a great job getting most everything packed…all I had to do was pack my own stuff and bring a happy Kristen. We launched the canoes and started our trip. I brought extra reading material this year figuring I would need it. I decided to get my few casts out of the way so I could say I actually fished and then I could hunker down with a good magazine or book.

We began by throwing these little gummy-plastic frogs. I named my first one Kermit. I was getting a lot of bites! It was actually kind of exciting because you throw the frog as close to shore as you can get it and the fish usually pounces it as soon as it hits the water. The important part is to get the hook set well so it doesn’t come out of the fish’s mouth while pulling it into the canoe. I ended up catching 6 fish that first day and before I knew it…it was time to stop for dinner and camping. I fished the whole day and didn’t get bored or read one thing!

The next morning, to my dismay, we started EARLY… The fish were biting though and I caught the first three fish! Not only were they fish…but they were nice fish! One was 18” and about 2.7 lbs. They were all keepers and we kept them on our stringer for dinner that night. Pops caught two fish for his stringer and we had enough for dinner. Jokingly, I pointed out that this was probably the first time in the history of the Bellows’ canoe trip that J didn’t contribute to dinner. In his defense…he was my “tour guide” and was paddling the canoe to keep it straight and keep me out of the trees full of spiders and webs. He was also giving me time to cast into the good spots to help me catch fish. He probably would’ve caught double what he did if he wasn’t being patient with me. I do really appreciate him enduring my not-so-accurate casts and listening to me berate all the fish that got off my line. I also appreciate his help getting all the fish but one off my hook once I got them on. It helped me have a lot more fun than years past…

I caught 13 fish the second day! Our frogs were fabulous lures and we went through them too quickly! We were using lures that would barely stay on the hooks so we didn’t have to retire them and use new ones. We went through Kermit, Miss Piggy, Tigger and many other lures that weren’t lucky enough to get names.

One of our points of reference is a rope swing that is located in a very slow, deep section of river. We saw the rope hanging down and when we got close enough, we realized it was a new rope swing! I was kind of excited for this part of the trip… Of course I asked J to go first because it looked quite precarious. This was the BIGGEST rope swing I had ever seen…and I have been on some large ones before! J climbed the platform which was 25-30 feet about the water. He looked terrified once on the platform and it took him a few seconds to figure out how he would get off it without hitting his tush on the way down. He jumped and MY adrenaline started pumping!! He flew through the air and let go at the apex of his swing over the river. He dropped a lot of feet and when he surfaced he had a look of shocked excitement. I couldn’t believe he actually did it. I actually chickened out…I asked J if he thought I would do it…and he told me he didn’t think so. He’s a pretty good judge of those kinds of things. The angle you have to jump off the platform at puts a TON of force on your hands/rope going down and I don’t know if could’ve held on. It was exciting enough living vicariously through my hubby for that one.

I was super bummed I didn’t have my digital camera to get a video of this rope swing. Earlier that day we hit the boat ramp a little hard in Wingina and the camera fell off the canoe and into the river. Luckily I was planning on returning it to Costco before the warranty is up in October. I feel a little bad because I was hoping to return a camera in working order. Unfortunately we don’t have digital pics from the second half of the trip…

We made it to our planned camping spot and had time to relax before dinner. J and I tried to float the small rapid by our site with life jackets. We ended up bumping along the bottom of the river like our canoes on a bad year until we decided we had enough rocks to the knees. We had a great fish fry that evening with fish to spare. We built a bonfire and relaxed by the fire while we ate s’mores until we were too sleepy to talk. Pops reminisced about how Jason used to get up early in the morning(before anyone else woke up) to fish. J woke Pops up one morning with a 5 lb fish!! Before we went to sleep I told J that he could get up early as long as he didn’t wake me up for any reason before the sun came up! We retired to our tent and fell asleep on our 6-8” air mattress!! Yup, 6-8”!!! It was absolute heaven. I don’t know that I will ever car camp without one again.

I slept like a baby and woke up because I had to pee. Of course, while camping, I always wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom! I didn’t want to go out, in the dark…without contacts…in the cold….with all the snakes and bugs….to go to the bathroom. I knew if I didn’t that I wouldn’t sleep for the next hour so I decided to go. When I returned to the tent J was awake. He asked me if he should get up to go fishing. I said, “I’m going back to sleep…but if you’re going to go fishing…go now so you don’t wake us up later…”

I was just dozing off and it sounded like J went running down the beach and into the river. He was splashing around and having a good old time. I was thinking does he know what time it is??? Is he aware that we are sleeping???? Before I could start to doze off again J was at our tent saying, “Pops…Kris!!! Look at this haawg!!!! Guys!! Look at this fish!!!!” He was standing outside the door with a HUGE fish. Pops said, “And that is why J gets up to fish so early in the morning.” With that, we both rolled over and went back to sleep.

The last day went pretty fast like the first two. I fished the entire two days prior and decided to do a little more this last day. I had one more froggy left and decided to fish until I lost him. I had a ton of bites and one fish actually ate one of his legs. I fished with an amputee froggy the rest of the day (he could only kick with one leg). Good thing he was hooked to some fishing line or he would have swam in circles! I ended up catching 4 fish that morning; including one about 100 yards from the take out. I even made some strides and took one off the hook myself…

As we were pulling into the boat ramp I looked at J and said, “Ya know, I hate to admit this…but I think I actually had a lot of fun this year on the canoe trip…” J looked a little surprised but very proud and said, “I’m glad you had fun. I had a great time too!”

All in all….it was a successful trip. J is already planning on one for next year. Coming from someone’s not-so-rosy perspective…it was a fabulous trip and I can’t wait to go next year.

Fish count was 97 total: 95 small mouth, 1 large mouth, 1 catfish (J thought this was a record bass!!! He was quite disappointed when he saw the whiskers…)

J-46 fish, Pops-28 fish, Kristen-23 fish

Day 3

Day 3:

Note: If you haven't read Day 1 and Day 2, please do so now. It is much better when read in order.

Once upon a time in my much younger years we camped at this same spot and I got up at the crack of dawn to wade and fish the area. This was probably 10 years ago or more. That morning I used a Zara puppy to land Iron Jaws and came back to the tent and woke up everybody holding an 18.5” bass. This is probably the most commonly told story of past year's canoe trips.

Back to this year: About 6:30am Kristen woke me up when she got out of the tent to go to the bathroom. When she got back in I told her to leave the door open since I was about to get up and go out fishing. I laid in bed for another 5 minutes trying to get myself out of bed. Normally it was easy but for some reason it was hard this year. Maybe it was the cushy 6” air mattress we had this year. Maybe it was the fact that I’m now 30 and my desire for a little extra rest is starting to outweigh my desire to fish. Either way, it took me a few minutes but I finally willed my body off the heavenly mattress and out the door. I changed into my cold wet swimming suit (another reason not to get out of bed) and walked over to the canoe to grab my pole. This year I have baitcasters. Kristen has been using one of them and other two were set up with a Zara spook on one pole and a buzzbait on the other pole (I had lost my last plastic frog the evening before). I decided to try the buzzbait. The morning was very foggy with steam rolling off the water. It was light enough to see a few feet away from you but between the fog, steam and low light you couldn’t see as far as you can fast. I took my first cast with the buzzbait right in front of our tent. I was literally standing a foot from the canoe and had not even entered the water yet. It hit the water and I began reeling it in. About 5 seconds into the retrieve I heard a huge splash. It sounded like somebody threw a boulder into the water. I felt a pull on the line and set the hook. I still couldn’t see far enough to see the fish hit. A few second into the fight the fish took the air. It sounded like a person jumping around out there the splashes were so loud. Kristen was still trying to go back to sleep and she said in a grumpy tone, “Your being loud.” I was too busy to reply. I made some progress on the fish and then he would pull out more drag. The water was pretty swift in this area so when he turned downstream he pulled out a good 20-30 feet of line and I couldn’t do anything to stop him. I made up some ground and it felt like he was coming closer and then he jumped again. This time he was close enough that I could see him. I muttered a “Holy Cow” to myself that I’m pretty sure both Kristen and Pops heard since the tent was less than 10 feet away from where I was standing. The fish made another good run and then a few short runs before I got him close enough to shore that I could wade in and grab him. I pulled him out of the water and he was a giant. I grabbed Pops weigher and tape measure out of his canoe. He was a tad over 21” and fluctuated between 4.1 and 4.2 lbs. Remember this was literally my first cast of the morning. After the weighing and measuring I took him over to the tent and showed Kristen and Pops. I knew Kristen was already up and Pops wouldn’t mind being woken up by this size of a fish. I showed him to Kristen and Pops through the window and told them quick version of the story and then let the fish go. What a way to start Day 3.

I waded up stream and caught a few more on the buzzbait but nothing big. I did have two other really big hits that sounded like big fish but somehow both of them missed the lure and wouldn’t come back and hit it again.

The rest of day 3 was pretty uneventful. We broke camp at 9:30 and hit Howardsville by 11:30 or so. The fishing in that section was good as always but nothing else huge this morning. The river in this section is pretty quick with lots of rapids, beautiful and goes all too fast.

As we neared the boat ramp Kristen did catch 1 more nice fat 14” bass on her last cast to the shore right before the Rockfish river comes in. A good ending to a wonderful trip. Totals for the trip was something like 98 fish of which I caught 46 including 3 4-lbers. Only regrets I have for the trip is that I wish we could come back again sooner. See ya next year James river.

Day 2

Day 2:

Day 2 was overall the best day of fishing we have ever had on the James. We didn’t’ catch the most fish but the quality was the best we have ever caught. The day started out with an early alarm clock. We needed to make about 11.5 miles today to reach our usual camp spot so we set the alarm clock for 6:00am. We were hoping to be on the water by 7am but didn’t actually get launched until a few minutes after 7:30am. We started floating and the fishing was good right away. Within the first ½ mile Kristen had 2 good keepers into the boat—a nice 16” and another 16.5”. As we approached Cunninghams Island we saw pops cross to the left side of the island and so we crossed over to float that same side. Fishing on the backside of the island was very good but the water was pretty quick in there so mostly Kristen fished and I steered and paddled to ensure the canoe was in good position. Kristen caught a really nice 17” within the first couple hundred yards of the island that made for 3 keepers. A couple minutes later she landed a 14” that was just barely too small to keep. I believe at this point Pops also had 1 keeper on his stringer so we had 4 out of the 5 keepers we were looking to catch for tonight’s dinner. The fish tally at 8:30am as we exited the backside of Cunninghams Island was 6 to 1 in favor of Kristen. She was killing them. A couple hundred yards after the Island pops radioed over to us that he had another 15” to add to his other keeper so that was all we needed to keep. It was probably about 9am at this point.

The next couple of miles things slowed drown for Kristen a little bit as I started fishing more and she had a lot of bites but missed most of them for a while. Pretty soon I had rattled off 4 in a row to bring the count in our boat to Kristen-6, Jason-5. As we neared the town of Wingina we pretty consistent good fishing on the left side of the river but Pops was doing even better on the right side of the river. We reached the Wingina boat ramp about 11am which was on time or even just a bit of what we were hoping. The river was flowing pretty good in this section and we didn’t need to do much paddling except to keep the canoe straight and a good distance from shore. We were a bit ahead of Pops at this point so we pulled into the boat ramp to give him time to catch up. We debated eating lunch at this point but decided to push on and maybe eat lunch at swift island which was just a couple miles down river. The left side provided good fishing as we floated toward Swift Island. As we approached Swift we found that the water was lower than it often is and many rocks were exposed. We got stuck a few times before finding a good channel near the island to float through. We pulled in to the backside of Swift island and decided this was a good spot for lunch. At this point Kristen and I were tied with about 9 fish each. Kristen had probably had over 30 or 40 good solid hits on her frog before lunch.

The fishing after swift Island was still excellent. The right bank was a bit shallow but had some occasional deep holes that provided good current, shade, structure and often held fish. About a mile after Swift Island I threw my frog out into another good-looking hole and had a nice bass grab it as soon as it hit the water. I set the hook and the fish immediately took out drag and went to the air. It was huge. On his next jump my frog went flying out of his mouth, however, the hook stayed in. He took a few more good hard runs before I finally got him to the boat and was able to grab his bottom lip. We tried to radio ahead to dad that we needed his weigher and tape measure but our battery was dead. We put the fish on the stringer and both Kristen and I paddled hard to try to catch up to Pops. About 15 minutes of paddling and we were even with Pops. We put the fish on the scales it flashed 4.1 then 3.7 and finally settled at 3.9lbs. We tape measured his and measured him at 20.5” long. Not a bad fish. Not bad at all. We returned to the right bank and continued casting our plastic frogs up along the shore. We caught another couple smaller fish and then Kristen hooked into a good one. It didn’t jump but it made some hard runs and pulled out drag. She fought it for a while and finally got it up next to the boat. Then it made 1 more run and somehow the hook pulled out of the fishes mouth. By the looks of it in the water it was probably also close to 4lbs maybe a little less. I’d say 3.5-4lbs judging from how big it looked in the water. Kristen was a little upset but she didn’t do anything wrong and there really was nothing she could have done. Sometimes things like that just happen.

Around the next bend, the slow water began and we reached the rope swing. This meant that it was about 3.5 miles to go until the camp spot for the night. It was about 3pm at this point but we a had a small head wind that had just started to lightly blow. We stopped at the rope swing and it looked nearly brand new. The top of the rope was up about 50 feet and had a chain that was around a huge tree. The chain was then connected to a very large rope that had a rubber/plastic black piece on the end, maybe where you are suppose to put your feet?!? Up on the bank somebody had built steps by nailing 1x2” planks to the side of the tree. Up about 25 feet above the water was a small platform with a small yellow rope attached to it that dangled down into the edge of the water. I grabbed the small yellow rope that was at the bottom and swam out to the big rope that was just about 2” above the water. The little yellow rope had a nice clip on the end so I wrapped it around the big rope and then clipped it to itself and swam back to shore. Nice—now I could climb the platform without having to worry about the rope and then just pull up the yellow rope when I got to the top of the platform. Once back on shore I started to climb up the tree. The planks kind of curved their way up the tree and were not very big. Climbing up the tree felt like a mix of rock climbing and climbing a ladder. Probably a bit more like the former. Once on the platform I looked down to see I was about 25 above edge of the shore line. I hauled in the big rope by pulling on the small yellow rope until I reached the clip. It worked perfectly. The end of the big rope was just long enough to reach. Somebody had done a great deal of work to build this rope swing. It was definitely not an amateur’s job. Once on top I wavered a couple of seconds. This was definitely the biggest rope swing I had ever done and I’ve done some pretty big ones. A few years back somebody had built a huge platform at this location but this new design was bigger. Kristen and I also did a huge swing into a river in Hawaii a few years back. Well, there was no way I was going to climb back down those skinny planks nailed to the side of this tree. I grabbed the rope as far up as I could and pulled my legs up to my chest. On the swing down toward the bottom the force was so strong that I could barely hold onto the rope. By the time I reached the bottom I was moving really really fast. As I started to swing up into the air I started to wonder when I should let go. If I let go too soon my momentum would carry me way out into the river and since I was going so fast I probably would have no control and end up on my face of back or something crazy. If I held on too long I would end up dropping all the way from the top of my swing and that was going to be really really high up. Everything happened so fast I’m not exactly sure where I let go. Then when I was in the air it seemed like time froze. I dropped and dropped and dropped and wondered, where the water was. While in the air I thought to myself:

1. "Better point your toes or this might hurt the bottom of your feet."
2. "I hope the water is really really deep here."
3. "If I do hit the bottom then I hope there isn’t sticky mud down there. What if I hit the bottom and stuck into the mud?"
4. "Breathe! Don’t forget to breathe…."

And then I finally hit the water. It was really dark and really deep and I didn’t touch the bottom. I swam up for a while and finally broke the surface. Whoa that was crazy. I swam back to shore and the adrenaline was flowing. The rush was kinda like catching that 4lb smallmouth, except, catching another 4lb smallmouth I like to do again. When I got back to shore Kristen asked me if it was scary. I said yes. She asked me if I was going again. You know how there are some things in life where are just happy to have survived them and get them behind you. This was one of them. I just decided to just answer her with a polite “no.” She then asked, “Should I go or do you think I would be too scared?” I told her that it was pretty scary and I think we should move on. She didn’t argue.

After the rope swing we switched it up and Pops came in the front of my canoe and Kristen went solo for the last 3.5 miles of the day. Usually the next few miles until you get within sight of the Beauford and Sycamore Islands aren’t very good fishing. It is usually very slow and flat water and very deep. Often times we just paddle through it to get to the Chute and set up camp. This year it was not as deep and probably averaged 3-6 feet by shore. It was moving a little bit but was slower than the rest of the river. We decided to fish it. Pops was up front and I did most of the paddling for us. He hit most of the spots but I would hit anything he missed or if he got a backlash or a tangle or something. I think he caught one or two small ones as we worked the left shore. About ½ way through there was an area with some rocks sticking out by shore. We paddled around them and then went back to shore. There was a nice little tree that was over hanging the water and pops didn’t cast for it. I grabbed my pole and backhanded my little frog to within six inches of shore. I gave it a few turns, just enough to get the little legs kicking and it got inhaled. I set the hook and a nice hog took me for a ride. He pulled my drag out a few times but before long I had him up along the boat. I grabbed his bottom lip and lifted my 2^nd 4-lber in less than three hours into the boat. It was every bit as chunky as my previous fish and about the same length. We didn’t measure or weigh him but he was pretty much a mirror image of the monster I had caught just a few hours ago. That pretty much topped it off. This was the best day of James river fishing we had ever had. Our stringer of 5 solid keepers by 9:30am. Two 4-lbers landed by Jason and another lost at the boat by Kristen. Total for the day was something like 18 for Jason, 13 for Pops, 13 for Kristen but just about everything was a good quality fish. If it was a bass tournament, our 5 fish limit would have weighed about 15 lbs. And we probably had 100 or more good solid hits on the day. It is a day that won’t soon be topped.

The rest of the way to the chute was pretty uneventful. We got passed by a group of 5 canoes and a kayak. We paddled the rest of the flat water to beat the other group and ensure we got the good camping spot at the Chute. It turns out they took the left side of the island anyway. We set up camp about 4:30 or 5pm at a nice sandy spot about 100 yards downstream from our usual Chute camping spot. The river was nice there this year and we did some wading and swimming, fishing, floating in lifejackets and pops even fell asleep in his chair. We set up camp, cooked the fish, built a fire and roasted s’mores until the wee hours of the night, about 10pm.

Things to remember for next year:

• Can opener. It’s not on the list but you really need one.
• Camp chairs for everybody. Worth their weight and space and then some for dinners and sitting around the fire.
• 6” blow up mattresses with pumps are awesome. Bring some for everybody.
• Two way radios with batteries that last all 3 days are a must. Waterproof would be nice too.
• Get a waterproof camera. We dropped ours in the water again this year. Good thing it was shallow and its only been 2 months and it is still covered by costco’s warranty.
• 1 fish per person is plenty if they are big, 15-17”.
• The slot limit is 14-22 and only 1 can be kept over 22. Oppps.