Father's Day Fishing Tale

Fishing with our crew is always an adventure.  Or, more accurately, a misadventure.  Nevertheless, every year on Father's Day, we pack up the rods, bait, tackle, and family, and head out.  Ok, so "we", in this case, refers to "David"...I grab the really important stuff, like my hoodie (in case a rare June lake wind blows in), oh, and the camera.

Our bug spray was nowhere to be found, so a quick stop had to be made at the drugstore.  Drue's blood attracts all bugs known to mankind.  The girl can get 5 humongous bites just going from the house to the car.  As David ran in to get the spray, I turned around in my seat and gave the kids a mini lecture.  "Now listen up, this is Daddy's day.  Let's try and make this a fun outing for him.  No whining, fighting, complaining about the heat, bugs, etc.  Basically, just act like different children for a few peaceful hours."

Upon David's return, he tossed the spray into the backseat.  Tate clutched it to his chest, as though it were the last bottle in the free world, and exclaimed loudly, "I get to be the first one to have it put on!"  Perhaps he hadn't paid as close attention to my speech as I would have liked.

We were off.  We no sooner had turned onto the lake road, than the complaining started.  "Ummm...where on God's green Earth are we going?! I thought you were parking at that nice little beach area so I could get my tan on?  That's the only reason I agreed to come in the first place," remarked someone who shall remain nameless.  Of course, given the fact that our offspring are neither allowed to (a) talk to their Father in that tone, nor (b) get their tan on, it becomes fairly easy to narrow down who the first complainer might have been.   

Good-bye warm, sandy beach fishing.  Hello, steep rocky bank we practically had to rappel down with all our equipment.  David has one rule during these excursions:  If you hook any part of his body, you have to sit out.  Thankfully, hooking his shirt doesn't count, because that occurred at least twice.  My one rule is: If I see a snake, or any twig resembling one, I'm outta there and will hitchhike home.  It doesn't even have to be to our home.

In the time it took me to semi rappel down the bank and join the family, Drue had already gotten her line stuck in a tree.  She went on to do it about 12 more times during the course of the afternoon.  David got busy baiting hooks, rescuing her line, baiting more hooks, rescuing more lines from the rocks. As Tate stared intently at his bobber, he asked innocently, "Dad? Why aren't you fishing?".

Ok, so I'm sure you're wondering right about now, why I wasn't being more of a help.  I am the official "picture taker" and "runner of children to the potty".  After I take an appropriate amount of pictures, I do help with the hooking of the worms.  I just like to try and keep the worm guts and dirt on my camera to a minimum.  

Drue brought her pole to me about every 45 seconds for a new worm.  I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that every time her bobber went under, she was gazing at the trees around us, or at the pretty butterfly that had landed on her shirt.  She wanted nothing to with the worms at all.  This was our child who used to enjoy playing with the worms more than she did actually fishing.  So I said to her, "Drue, you used to love worms, and play with them all the time.  What happened?"  She crinkled up her nose and said, "Well, I don't like them anymore.  They've turned on me."  I was just glad to finally be getting rid of these creepy crawly things that have been taking up residence in my refrigerator for far too long.

At one point, after I'd baited about 35 hooks, and had done my fair share of getting lines unstuck from various impossible places, I noticed a certain person missing.  The main man of the day, in fact.  Apparently, at some point, David thought, "To heck with this gig," and had gone in search of  a secluded spot that we were all too afraid to even attempt to come over to.

Not long after we were there, I hiked up the trail with Reese so she could use the bathroom, secretly wishing for a split second she was a boy and could just go on a tree.  I made it all the way back down the trail, and found Drue patiently awaiting our arrival so I could hike back up the trail and take her to the bathroom.  On our way back down, I could hear Tate screeching loudly.  I assumed he'd taken his first accidental plunge into the water below, but he actually had caught a fish!  Not a tiny, 2-3 inch size like they'd been catching, but an actual "keeper".  He went on to tell me he named him Joey.  Just as I was thinking what a tender heart he has, he said, "I can't wait to eat him!"

As he made his next cast, he said, "I don't know how, but I'm an expert at fishing now."  Awww...tenderhearted and humble.  A few more little fish were caught before all was said and done.  Reese insisted she caught the "big one" a few times, but it kept getting off her line.  "Ugh, I hate this pond!" she announced.  Tate was beaming right next to her saying,  "I love this pond!  I caught a keeper!"  (Add sympathetic to the list),  I was proud of Tate for keeping such good track of his bobber each time he threw it in.  He referred to all his nibbles as, "Mine twitches a lot."  He even baited his worm a few times and said, "I hooked my own worm, and the fish love it!" 

Reese gave us her grand total as we were packing up, "I got two fish."  Tate said, "Oh, I got more.  I can't even count 'em".  Reese shot back, "You got three, Tate." 

We made it back to the car with most of the stuff, and as David was packing everything into the trunk, I was standing there doing nothing.  So I had the considerate idea to rappel back down and grab the bucket with Joey in it.  After I hiked back up with the 50 pound bucket of water, David proceeded to grab it and pour out at least 25 pounds of the water, so it wouldn't slosh too much on the ride home. The thought crossed my mind to pour the other 25 pounds of water on top of his head, which I probably would have followed through with if I hadn't been too tired to lift it.

 
David cleaned Joey when we got home and Tate ran inside to tell me, "We got all the chicken out!"  I peered into the bowl and saw 3 little nugget sized pieces of Joey.  Tate reassured me saying, "He's with Jesus now." 

Next year, I'm think I'll just hook David in the ear first thing, so I can sit out...on the beach.