Sometimes Kids Are Right

“Dad, can we go crayfishing today?”

They had both been introduced to crayfish a few weeks back when visiting family. Their initial attempt had proven futile as none of the critters were found in the stream. Scout camp had rekindled their interest because one of the Nature activities was to go crayfishing in the stream at the camp. They both had success there, getting a chance to see a crayfish for the first time as well as catch one.

Now, they wanted to go looking for crayfish in the stream that runs along the back of our property. To be honest, I didn’t.

The stream is not easily accessible, with lots of tall grasses and steep, muddy banks. Not to mention bugs the size of my fingers flying around and mosquitoes that carried around syringes. Plus, the only spot I could think that might be suitable for crayfishing was a bit of a hike away.

So, I let the question hang in the air and figured they’d get distracted by something else today. After all, when we ask them to do things they constantly get distracted by something else.

Naturally, such was not the case today and late this afternoon, I begrudgingly took them on a hike to look for crayfish.

When we got close to the spot, we lucked out that the property owner was around and he told us an easy way to get down to the stream where we wouldn’t have to deal with tall grasses. Plus, the bank got nice and close to the water for easy entry and exit. When we arrived at the spot, we got another bonus- it put us right in a spot in the stream where, if there were crayfish to be found, we were where they’d be.

So the boy and the lass, armed with plastic cups for catching purposes, plopped down into the stream. It was only about a minute before the boy was pointing and asking if that was a crayfish.

It was indeed, and a rather large specimen to boot. Bigger than any of the ones he’d seen at Scout camp. We didn’t catch that one as it shot under a large rock. But a little further upstream, we hit the motherload with 3 and 4 inch crayfish just sitting out in the open, rather than hiding under rocks.

The boy went about his own way catching them. I had to lend the lass a hand. She couldn’t quite master the coordination of getting the cup behind the critter and then driving them back into it. She finally scored a success with a smaller specimen towards the end of the adventure. The boy scored a success when he spotted and captured the biggest one of the day, probably close to 6 inches long.

When it was all said and done, I’d had an enjoyable time. In spite of myself, really. I had to admit that I was glad I’d let the kids convince me to take them out. Many times, they’ve got ideas that don’t quite pan out (like “The 13 Amazing Shows”- but that’s another post, maybe.) But this time, they got it right.