Girl's Mini Vacation and Tenkara Fishing at Lake Gregory and Big Bear lake....):}+{:(

[The Fishing Queen]

Finally, summer is here! No more school, homework or tests. No more Mommy chores, no need to be a taxi driver. I was just about to take a break and be carefree...... But wait, there are summer activities to start soon??? Ha, ha, this is the job that I signed up for as a parent of two. In my life, there are a few things that are on my top list: 1. The children (family); 2. Art and Music; 3. Fishing..... So, before my daughter's 5 weeks of summer activities start, I wanted to spend a few days with her alone at our mountain home.





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Day One: It was a sunny day. We stopped at LG on our way up around 2 pm. I took my 13' Tenkara rod with a 16' line + a 4' tippet with me. My daughter and her little girl dog enjoyed their walk on the dirt trail and the little, sassy dog was proud to take the lead. We walked around the lake and I stopped at a few spots for fishing. As I was fishing, the girls would sit on a boulder watching me catching fish or play. We stayed for 3 hours, I caught 4 trout and a lot of panfish on an olive green woolly bugger. The crappies and green sunfish were hiding in the weed-beds about 10'-15' from the shore. The trout that I caught were all in 10"-13" range. All fish were released safely.













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Day Two: We had a lazy but relaxed morning - we had breakfast at home, then we both read for a while on the shady deck. Around 11am, we decided to get out of the house for lunch and going to BBL.



We got to the Big Bear Village around noon. The town was doing some construction. We went to many stores and had fun browsing and shopping. Some stores had great sales and we were loaded with bags of goodies.



We left village about 2:30, then we drove to Boulder Bay. I wanted to check out the fishing at this location before I returned home. I had my 13' Tenkara rod with me and we were fishing on the dock. There were 9 or 10 fishermen there fishing. I asked around and I was advised that the fishing was pretty slow - one guy caught a bass, a group of 4 were catching panfish with worms. So far, no one had caught any trout yet.







I spotted some juvenile bass, carp and some panfish in the tall weeds. I picked a brown BH Hare's Ear Nymph and fished around the weeds. The panfish were biting, I had a fish on almost every other cast and it kept me very busy. I had caught 45+ crappies, bluegills, redears,green sunfish and baby bass within 2 hours. Nothing was big enough to keep. Ended the day before 5pm and drove back home.










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Day Three: A sunny and windy morning. I went to the LG around 6:20 am, I did solo fishing along the north shore. The trout were splashing in the water to reach the flies on the surface. I tried to fish with a tan color caddies fly, but only spotted a small rainbow following the fly to the shore. After half hour without any bites, I changed to an olive green woolly bugger. I had better success with it and caught about 6 small trout and about 2 dozen crappies. All fish were safely released after the photos.











The wind started to blow harshly around 10:30, and the trout stopped biting. I ended fishing around 11 o'clock and left the lake. I pick up the girls from home and we headed to Lake Arrowhead Village for lunch and shopping.









All in all, we had excellent mini vacation and a good 'mom & daughter' time. I enjoyed fishing, she liked to play with her dog by the water and listen to her iPod. She loved to shop with me as much as I liked hanging out with her. It's a joy watching my girl growing up every day - she dresses like a big girl and shops like a young lady. Oh, yes, she sure has shopping fever and she carries on like her Mom - like mother, like daughter???... My father in-law used to tease us and say: "The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.".... Well, let's all blame it on our female genes, OK?.....lol.... Meanwhile, we are planning another "girls only" kind of outing during this summer again.






The happy camper

[carpanglerdude]

Love the closeup photos. Nice catches!

[DEVOREFLYER]

Most outstanding indeed. Looks like you have a "Fishing Princess" in the making and with the shopping perhaps also a "Chip off the Ole Block". lol

[GhettoBasster]

Thanks for another awesome report! What a great trip with the two and four-legged kids.

[VIVID_FLY]

Nice report Alice. Way to fish BIG BEAR for the sunfish.

[TonyLisa]

Great report fishing queen. Those pictures make me wanna go up there lol

[Bobber Boy]

Great report and some good looking fish! It is beautiful up there!

[5150fishn]

Great report and pics. I love it in Big Bear!

[Natural Lefty]

What a nice vacation, Alice. The first panfish is a Pumpkinseed Sunfish actually. A couple of other ones are difficult to identify exactly. They might be Bluegill/Green Sunfish hybrids, or maybe Green Sunfish. I have never seen Green Sunfish in BBL, but I guess they are in there. I had never seen Green Sunfish in the Colorado River before until May when my wife and I went there, but there was a school of the little critters all together, spawning I think. I caught about 10 of them on jigs and put them back to spawn.

Nice photos. It looks like your lovely daughter takes after you. :)

[fishinone]

That sounds like a nice vacation.

BTW: The little dogs hair would make great flies. I have solid gray cat that will be donating at my house!