Fishing Stories to Remember

 

When I was a girl and fell in love with fishing, I was taught by rules:

  Things must go a certain way, certain hours must be observed, silence is best...

 Then came my children. 

 Funny, as I am a mix of a free-spirited type and a girl who loves the order rules bring. I took them to our cabin in the woods for a week, near the end of summer, just a few weeks prior to now.

 I brought them to a store to get fishing supplies and gave them a general run down on the how-to, then I parked a chair on the quiet sandy shore and let them do as they felt best. (either great parenting or crazy, still not sure which).  

Their father was hundreds of miles away, as I lived out this week in the wilderness with 5 of my brood that wasn't committed to work related things.  We were in heaven and the fish played along.  At one point I did ask a man to help identify the fish they caught, now even forgetting what he said.  He encouraged them in their fish adventure and never once laughed at their "how-to."  He offered a few stringing pointers, bragged on their mad skills and went back to watching his 2 year old son who kept trying to run away.

My fourteen year old son, King Meemer, was the brains behind their fishing. 

 He thinks outside the box and soon had everybody fishing as he saw best.

Fishing 101- walk up to your armpits floating your tackle box, bait, and such on your boogie board. Convince your fifteen year old sister and your 13 year old brother that this is just a normal afternoon of fishing.  (Here again, I was told get your bum out of bed bright and early and/ or wait until dinner time to attempt fish catching.)


Laughing as they caught more fish than I ever did.
  AND they loved it.

Their youngest sister who is part fish herself,
 opted to swim and fish on more of a part-time commitment.  She is my social butterfly and always has an eye out for someone to make friends with.  Fish just don't make that great of a friend for her 8 year old self I guess.

Yes, they were fishing out of the swim area, at their mum's request.
they fished for HOURS!! One time their tackle floated away and another time I found it floating up to the beach.  Guess they had the tackle with a homing device back to the shore...
the 'come to Mama type' tackle.

Who knew!

Day after day they would spend the hours trying to capture all of the lake fishies.  I wish I got a picture of the crowd they began to draw. Men and women, young and old wanted in on their fishing adventure.  Quite honestly, I am quite surprised that after 8 days the newspaper reporter didn't show up to question what it was they were doing out to their eyeballs at Hall's Lake everyday.

Did I mention that their was little "quietness" to their fishing antics?  Perhaps the fish here were starving, or just mesmerized by such fishing tactics, that they happily took the bait.  (which was a whole bunch of stuff I never would have even considered as bait.  My rule book said catch night crawlers with a flashlight, avoid glass worms, and or use those ever available rubbery worm. If desperate try the spray that is supposed to lure the fish to the bait.)

The brains behind the fishing has a tender heart and really didn't want to eat any of their catch. He talked all of them into letting each fish to swim back to freedom.  Even though their mother told them she would teach them the 'how-to' of eating their catch. No takers.

Maybe next year they will change their mind, perhaps larger fish will look more like dinner to my ever surprising children.  Guess we will have to wait and see, as it is too cold now to venture up to your neck in the lake.

Kids they sure are a lot of fun!