by CLIFF AND AND NANCY HILL
One for the books, a fishing trip to remember. Pictured are Nancy and Cliff Hill holding two beautiful (and tasty) rainbow trout caught recently “somewhere” in the greater Rockford community.
This past spring, the Hills had occasion to bid in a silent auction on a guided fishing trip to a secret “honey hole”. Even more enticing was the fact that the secret spot was right in the greater Rockford vicinity.
Bidding against eight other anglers, who kept upping the ante, we eventually prevailed. All that remained was to set the date.
But you know how it goes, one thing led to another this summer, what with two weddings and 13 weeks of promoting Rockford’s Farm Market in the America’s Favorite Farm Market contest, we somehow never found the time to redeem our prize. Actually as summer rolled into fall, we had forgotten all about it.
So it came to pass a couple weeks ago that we crossed paths with our expert guide who asked the obvious question, “Are you going fishing or not?”
Was he kidding?! We were entering a protracted period of beautiful Indian Summer and we made a date right then and there.
On the appointed day we hung up a “gone fishing” sign and found ourselves blindfolded (a condition of the outing) in a pick-up truck as we traveled a bumpy two-track enroute to the secret fishing hole.
We were not to be disappointed. Our guide really, really knew his stuff. In short order Nancy brought to net a whopper 22” rainbow trout weighing 5 lb – 7 oz. Cliff then proceeded to, as he said, “show you how it’s done”, and promptly netted a 10” brook trout that he quickly released. This was all was accompanied by huge peals of laughter from the guide and his wife along with Nancy.
Not to be outdone, Cliff said, “Watch this”, while he expertly cast his small Rooster Tail spinner bait into the clear waters. Unbelievably, he tied into another lunker rainbow, this one measuring 23” and weighing in at 5 lb. – 11 oz.
Not wanting to be greedy, as well as being eaten alive by little nasty gnats, we called an end to our spectacular 45 minutes of fishing fame. The looks on our faces in the accompanying picture tell a thousand words. For a fisherman it doesn’t get any better than this.
As for our guide, a native of these parts, we’re forever indebted to him for sharing his “honey hole”.
Comments by our Readers