Hooked on Fishing

That’s the big one that didn’t get away today(If anyone recognizes what kind, I’d love to know. No one at the derby was sure.). But it almost did, and the boy would not have been happy about it. In fact, the fish was able to get itself caught up in some weeds, triggering the drag mechanism in the reel and the boy almost lost his squash because “IT”S NOT COMING IN!!!” Fortunately, I was able to tighten the drag a little, the fish popped out of the weeds, and the boy landed it.

Then, he refused to touch it.

Even so, he was better than the lass, who refused to touch any of the fish. The boy at least tried to bait his own hook, cast his own line, held some of the smaller fish in his hand and even grabbed a couple of the bigger small-mouth bass by the mouth. The lass just reeled the fish in and left it at that. Oh, they both teamed up to get the bait this morning- the lass carried the bucket with the dirt and the boy picked up the worms and put them in a bucket. Notice a theme?

The Wife took the “I’m taking pictures” road. She wasn’t interested in touching fish either. Like Daughter, like Mother I guess. The only mouth she put her fingers in was the boys- to fix an elastic which had come off his braces.

All told, the Scout’s fishing derby was a smashing success. All the kids caught at least one fish. Only the fish got hooks in them and everyone left with a smile. Maybe not the fish, but they were all returned to the water and they got a fat worm for their troubles.

How good was the fishing? For the first 45 minutes or so, I barely had time to turn around after the kids cast a line out before they were exclaiming “The bobbers gone! I think I’ve got a fish!” Sure enough, they had a fish. Overall, the boy caught 8 fish and the lass caught 5. A pretty good day for any angler.

The day wasn’t without it’s life lessons. After the 4th or 5th one, the boy was talking about how great he was at fishing. So I decided to let him down gently. I told him “The number of fish you’ve caught has nothing to do with you.” I then proceeded to explain that it was part luck, part timing, part bait and part hungry fish. And part luck. I even got some backup from an older kid who was fishing with us. To his credit, the boy took the blow rather well.

Despite the fish in the pic, the boy didn’t win the prize for “biggest fish.” Another Scout caught a large mouth bass that was 34 cm. He didn’t win for most fish either- the winner there caught 12 fish. But the boy did win the prize for smallest fish, a whopping 14.5 cm. His award was a super-soaker.

So after all that, one might suspect that both of them want to go fishing again.

They would be correct.