Gone Fishin'

I am ashamed of this.


I have a daughter aged nine, and a son aged six, and until this weekend, I had not taken them fishing.

I know what you're thinking - "say it ain't so!"

And with a son especially - I mean a guy is just supposed to take his boy fishing, right?

And living in the South, yet! I mean we hold fishing in high regard around here.

I think I was inspired by a former Pastor, but I used to tell the kids stories about "Jesus and the Fishin' Buddies" and I pictured the disciples as being from somewhere SOUTH of Jerusalem. Ole Pete and his brother Andy, Zeb's boys - Jimmy and Johnny, and all the rest made up Jesus' band of happy fishermen. In the Bible account, Peter said: "I go a fishing." In my version he said, "Boys, I've had it! I'm going to wet a hook!"

Anyway, I enjoyed telling it.

But I never took them.

So now thanks, to my wife's persistence and willingness to make most of the preparations, we have gone fishing.

We went yesterday.

I made a big deal about the fact that we needed to get up reeeeaaal early.

So we ended up hitting the lake around 9:30 ...well that's early for a Saturday!

I was fairly insistent on the need to fish in a simple way. I preferred that we all have cane poles. When materials were being purchased - Dad got his very own cane pole... all the rest got Zebco's.
Family fishing is fun, but for Dad there is less emphasis on fishing and more on "Dad, bait my hook" or "Can you get my line untangled?". So I did the obligatory 'father-thing' and got everyone set with hooks, sinkers, bobs and bait (GRADE "A" - Large - "NightCrawlers"). But remarkably, Mom soon joined me in the baiting process! (guys, you have to go a long ways to find a woman that can bait her own hook!)

Finally, I got my cane pole readied.

Within moments I had pulled out a "lunker" (I think that's southern for - a somewhat large fish... only I am using the term very loosely here). Okay he was about the width of three fingers - but I caught him.

Soon I had caught another (if I hadn't injured the first removing the hook, I would have thought it was the same one).

And soon all those fancy fisherman wanted to use Dad's cane pole! Unfortunately, a short time later either a large fish or a snag resulted in a snapped cane pole when AA was using it.

We ended the day with the score: Dad 3, Mom 1, Kids 0. We were really hoping the kids would catch something -even if the bait was almost bigger than the fish we were landing.

But it was fun and relaxing. My children surprised me with their patience and they didn't really get into those "tangles" I expected. What's more, by the end of the morning, they were baiting their own hooks.