Wired Outdoors: Family Vacation at Pymatuning Lake

Last weekend I had the opportunity to spend a long weekend at Pymatuning Lake in northwest PA with my wife, son, and in-laws. This wasn’t a fishing trip but we did manage to get out fishing for a couple of hours on two days to try our luck with some panfish. Pymatuning is the largest reservoir in the commonwealth. I have only fished it a couple other times in my life. I would have been fishing blind, if it wasn’t for a friend who drew me a map of the areas he has fished in the past. Overall the weekend was a nice time, and we even managed to boat a few fish on our trip.

Mike's Crappie
Me with a decent crappie

I hauled my boat to the cabin, hoping we would get the opportunity to fish. There were six of us and everyone wanted to go out on the lake the first afternoon so we decided to rent a pontoon boat. I really enjoyed the outing because this was the first opportunity I had to fish with my in-laws. Paul and Nancy (mother and father in-law) didn’t have fishing licenses so Paul was the captain of our boat, driving us to likely fishing spots and Nancy was enjoying the sun on a picnic table in the front our boat. Chrissy, Nathan, Poss (grandfather in-law) and I were all going to try our luck at pulling some fish out of this lake. For only fishing a couple hours, we caught our fair share, and as someone pointed out on the boat, it was great to see 4 generations enjoying time outdoors together.

On the last evening at the cabin, Chrissy, Poss and I decided we would take my boat out to try our luck for the last time on this trip. We launched in the early evening and fished until dusk. Fishing with my wife and Poss was a great experience. Poss was an avid fisherman back in his day, and it was fun to sit back and listen to stories of his experiences through his many years fishing. He is a great storyteller and kept us laughing throughout the evening. The fishing didn’t end up to bad either. We were fishing for panfish once again, and boated close to 20 fish, keeping about a dozen nice perch, crappie and bluegill. There was also the typical story of the one that got away: Poss hooked a nice fish and as it came up to the side of the boat, I could see it was a very nice walleye. I don’t know why, but it never occurred to me to get the net and as he tried to pull the walleye into the boat. The hooked popped and the fish lived to swim another day.

Cabin
Cabin For The Weekend

Although this wasn’t a typical fishing trip, it was a nice opportunity for all of us to enjoy the outdoors as a family. Below are pictures from our family outing.