Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Take some boys fishing

My son and me are active in the Boy Scouts, and for the last 3 years, I have taken the troop on a high country camping and fishing trip.
Courtright lake, central Calif. Elevation 8,000 ft.
All day Saturday I took the boys, 2 at a time out in my 12 ft Jon Boat to troll for trout.
7 of the new scouts had never caught a fish before, but we fixed that.
11 boys and we boated 27 trout from 12” to 18”

A young man with his first fish

Two of the older boys

The scenery at Courtright is spectacular.

A good day for all. What lures do you use for trolling?

Doc

For this trip, we used trolling blades or "pop gear", like Seps and Luhr-Jensen "Dave Davis".
I also use a lot of stick baits like Rapala J-7s and J-9s, and crawler harnesses.

The prettiest is those PFD's.

Thanx for spending your time to help develop young men of the future!!!

Trolling blades or "pop gear" is a series of larger spinner blades attached to a piece of wire leader, with some type of rudder in front. Behind it is a 18" to 24' leader with a small spinner or baited hook.
It's heavy, and not as much fun as ultra-light gear, but if you want to put a lot of trout in the boat, nothing works better.
img]https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/53538.jpg[/img]

Good job there.

Used to be active here taking the troop on 90 mile whitewater trips. Best day ever was getting fishing fool youngster into a 30 inch steelhead. Prayed for a full 20 minutes that the fish would stay hooked up. He got to take it home.

Well done! Thanks for sharing the pictures and story and best wishes for many more memorable trips with the young men.

well done! some of my best outdoor memories involve my time active in scouts with my kids. enjoy the time, it goes by way too fast.

Congrats on the trout in the last photo. It's been a few years, maybe four or five since the altitude started getting to me but I've fished that lake plenty and that's the best trout I've seen from there.

Thankyou for taking them kids fishing. A first fish does not get forgotten.

That one is my biggest from Courtright.

I really enjoy taking the boys fishing.
The boy's are always cold and restless in the small boat, until the first hook up. After that they they are focused like lasers on that rod tip.
I have already volunteered to do it again next year.