gone fishin'

I went fishing for the second time in my life on Saturday. The first time, I was sixteen, and went with my good friend and her dad as part of the most activity-packed vacation I have ever been on. It was a lovely experience, and I'm glad they went to so much trouble to help me have a good time.

As an aside, I always wanted my grandpa to take me fishing when I was younger. I used to beg him, but for some reason, he never took me. Maybe it's because I talked to him so much that he thought I might disturb the fish...or him. Once I told my aunt about it and she said she thought maybe one of her girls ruined it because once they went fishing and then as soon as they got to the middle of the lake, my cousin decided she had to go to the bathroom, and so they had to go back in, and so maybe Grandpa never wanted to take anyone who couldn't pee over the side of the boat. I will never know, and it is just as well. Suffice it to say, I was quite excited to go fishing again!

Here is a picture of the pond where I went fishing. I know it looks like just a half-circle of water, but there is more water behind the little center island. Apparently there is a beaver slightly upstream that is having a field day, and so the fish are very hungry, and there are lots of them.

We went out in a little six or eight foot pontoon boat. (Yes. Fishing in a boat.) N3 caught a fish, and he and my husband came cruising into port and dashed up the yard, fish held in hand, to show me and LD. It was a tiny trout, about 8" long and 1" in diameter. We oohed and aahed and decided that we wanted to go fishing, too. So the poor fish had to wait while we pulled on our shoes, and then we trundled back to the boat and let the fishy go. (He had quite a bad shock, but ended up being well enough to swim away after a few seconds.) It was LD's turn to go fishing next. My HH hooked the worm, and on the first cast, my young sir had a fish in the boat! It was quite exciting. There was a lot of yelling and even some splashing. I wish I had a picture to show the happy look on his face. Later, he reported it was his favorite part of the (very full) day.

Then it was my turn. We ran out of worms, so I wasn't even going to get a turn, but when you get creative, sometimes opportunities knock. In this case, our opportunity was a baby slug (2") that had unwisely decided to get in the boat with us.  It met its demise as it became fish bait. (I had no idea if it would work at all. If I were a fish, I would TOTALLY rather eat a worm than a slug. Just in case you were wondering.) It turns out that if the fish are hungry enough, slugs DO work. HH cast for me, and I had the biggest fish of them all on the hook, and then in the boat, in just a couple of minutes! First cast! The fish was about a foot long and probably was 2" around. Basically, just big enough to actually keep (if I wanted to). HH said that his favorite part of the day was seeing the look on my face as the fish splashed into the boat (very splashily -- I need to work on my final reel technique, I suppose), and then again when I held him in the water and he very quickly (and with much more vigor than I anticipated) swam away. I was a little surprised, and my face showed it. I like to fully enjoy things, and try to look for fun in small experiences, and this definitely fit the bill. We all had such a good time in the boat (until it started raining, and we all got wet bums and had to come in because we weren't prepared for rain).

Looking forward to using the "gone fishin'" sign a few more times this summer!