Fishing, California-style

Look, my dad caught a fish ... with his bare hands.

Yeah, that's how they's do their fishin' in good ole California.

Before I go on to explain exactly how my dad found himself with a handful of brown trout, please take a moment to notice how flippin' clear the water is in the Truckee River. It was just gorgeous — gorgeous, I say, like butta.
I love this picture. Here's my dad, Bill, Sean and some strange lady who happened by in her inflatable raft all bend over, hands scrounging around in the river. (It reminds me of this painting by Francois Millet.)

But really what they were doing is trying to revive fish.

Yeah, they are fish revivers.

See, the wildlife guy came by in his big truck with his big tank o' fish and starts throwing buckets full of fish into the river.

Bill immediately sloshes his way over and talks the guy into letting him release the fish:Of course the guy is going to let Bill carry the buckets of fish and water up and down the river bank. I mean, there was no special skill or finesse required to dump a bucket into the river, plus the guy got to stand around and chew his chaw while Bill did all the work.

The problem was that not all the fish seemed, ah, well, suited to their new home. So the kind-hearted (and less squeamish of us — I was not interested in holding on to a mostly dead fish ... yeah, I'm selfish that way) spent some time with the belly-up fish, trying to get them swimming again.

They were able to save some, some didn't make it. One poor fish was left for dead on the bottom of the river. During the watergun fight we later had, Sean threw the poor, dead fish at Bill, which miraculously revived the dead trout and it swam away.
The rest of the day involved floating Mar around in her boat. The river was too shallow for a big boat but was perfect for Mar's one-man dingy.
We eventually got tired of dragging her around, so we tied her to this rock. Yeah, we're clever like that.
She was just as happy to paddle around tethered to the rock as she was while Bill dragged her around the river. Kids are great that way.
Here's a picture of my mom at the river's edge where we dragged numerous chairs, coolers, towels, squirt guns and miscellaneous other things we just had to have while sitting by the river.

Notice my mom's Chaco sandals, we got her those a while back. I have a pair, too. They were great for tromping through the river and they dried fast.

They do have one draw back... visible tan lines on the feet:
Yeah, I need to remember to take off my sandals when I'm sitting around in the sun. I look like some kind of freak who got creative with the sunless tanner.