How I started Troutfishing and Why it's become an Obession

It's time to take a little trip back in time. First of all my husband Tom is (9) years younger than I am, and my brother's best friend. So even though they grew up together, I wasn't included. My husband comes from a family of Outdoorsmen; his grandfather "Tom" and grandmother had a place at Paradise Valley for many years, so he grew up there. You know every weekend lots of weeks through summer and so on. His granfather on his stepdad's side whom he's very close to was the Farm Editor for the Register & Tribune for many years and has written many outdoor books, you might know him his name is Donald Muhm. He has 2 uncles and an aunt who are DNR officers. So needless to say lots of history here. My husband Tom hunts and fishes everything; however his passion is his wife. I'm so lucky! A couple of years ago he decided the only way we were going to get quality time together as a couple; remember we have (6) children ages 17 to 3 years old, so tiime together is very important. But working it in with all of kids activities and the fact that Tom does so much hunting and fishing on his off time, and the upkeep of our lake home on Rathbun lake in southern Iowa, we had to figure out what I would be best at. Hunting is OUT, tried to shoot a shotgun once and only once the fall on my butt and bruise to my shoulder was all I could take. Fishing was the obvious choice, NOT!!! can't stand being on a lake or river in a boat (and we have a BASS Tracker). So one day he said that's it Lisa I'm taking you to the most beautiful place in Iowa and we are going to Troutfish. Yeah right, me with Snakes, and mountain lions and WALKING or climbing over fences SURE. My first stream was Sny Magill, from the minute I walk to a little hole I was hooked. But as we drove to each consecutive stream that he took me to my fascination grew. The un touched beauty and calmness of nature was unbelieveable. We've stayed and different motels, eaten at differnt restaurants, and I spend more money than he does at Cabela's in Prairie Du Chien. But the one thing he keeps on me about is the fight to maintain the importance of the hatcheries and the quality of the streams. He's 30 years old this year, he's been doing this since he was 5 or so, and last year I saw more garbage left behind by people and fires left burning and just careless misuse of the areas. Each time we always go and visit a Hatchery just so I remember the hard work our DNR guys and gals do. I think this is a great website with alot of great people on it, I'm hoping I'll be able to get to know some of your better and together we can help increase the education of preseving the land and the importance of the Put and Grow Streams and practicing catch and release and all streams except oviously those to cook and the "BIG ONES" Last year over Thanksgiving weekend I got to fish for the first time in the snow, that was absolutely awesome, and then well I has a little accident. I'm not totally comfortable of all of the streams we fish, however I WAS totally content fishing BUCK Creek at the Mill; and since it was our last day, I thought okay its early on a sunday morning who else is gonna bug us at this time, and of course the cows hadn't moved in yet either, so I told Tom he could go ahead and walk upstream by himseld that I would be okay by myself and enjoy his time alone. It took my a while to get my stuff together and Tom was already out of site. I was fishing with hook splitshot and corn, and on my first cast I got snagged across the stream on a rock and well the ENTIRE weekend that's the way my fishing was..lure lost here there everywhere and didn't catch crap so..at this point I was pissed and well I gave the rod a hell of a yank, it broke loose okay slingshot right into my left eye - so powerful knocked me out. When I came to realized I was bleeding from my eye and if you know that stream its in the bottoms of bluffs so yelling was useless. I left my stuff there managed to get back to the van and realized I had no keys and prayed it was unlocked, thak god he didn't lock it this time. The whole time I didn't know if my eye was there or not to much blood and pain. Laid on the horn... and of course it took him FOREVER to come back down stream, because he just figured I'd done something stupid like fell in or maybe even caught what I would have called my trophy fish. NOT! When he finally saw me he was like [censored] all I said was Pack my eye with ice and get me the "F" back to Des Moines. We made it back here in record time needless to say, Luckily the hook just grazed the white of my eye however the power and weight of the splitshot caused the most damaged, so far not complete recovery yet. However, my point would be that the POLARIZED glasses are definately a necessity but make sure they are on your face not on top of your head. I love to troutfish, I can't wait for my husband to finish teaching me to fly fish and then my brother to teach me to tie flies, and I wish more women would enjoy the sport to. I really hope we can get a weekend planned of at least hoping to get the pleasure of running into some of you on the streams. Thank you Andy for such a good site, and thank you to the members of this site for your info it's all good.