Goin' Fishin'!!

Kev and the girls got up early and went finishing this morning. He said it was quite the adventure. Here are the details, in his words:

The girls had been harassing me for days to take them fishing. I have no idea why. Last year, I took them to Mill Hollow for a morning, and we didn’t see any action at all. No bites, no fish. So when they started the relentless prodding, I was a bit surprised they wanted to go so bad. Fishing with little kids is not the most thrilling experience. It definitely has its highlights though. When your kid squeals with excitement and you can see the thrill and adrenalin throbbing just under their skin when they catch a fish, that’s the payoff. The rest is work.

So my work began this morning by getting up somewhat early to wake up the kids, get them dressed, and get moving towards the lake. It wasn’t a long distance away, so the drive was a bit non-eventful. I did let Tye out once the asphalt ended, and let him run the 3 miles or so to the lake. He loves doing that and it gets him nice and tired so once we hit the lake all he wants to do is sleep.  He did find a herd of sheep on the way up, and properly ruined their morning. He said thanks for breakfast as he promptly found a couple of steaming piles and began eating them. I have no idea why he likes it but sheep dung seems to be a favorite of his.  I'm sure it is an acquired taste. I quickly put an end to that business as soon as I saw it. I had flashbacks of driving 2 hours in a car with him my head hanging out the window the whole way because of the unrelenting sheep-dip gas he kept sharing the entire trip. He had spent the day at my Dad’s place gorging on the stuff.

Anyway, at the lake, I had one pole made up already, so I threw a worm on it, tossed it out, and gave it to Brinkley. Then I started to get Lily’s pole ready. We were fishing with a worm and a bubble, with the worm hanging about a foot or so under the bubble off the surface. It wasn’t even a couple of minutes, and Brinkley’s bubble was bobbing up and down.

We tried to set the hook a couple times, but kept missing the timing. Every time we’d throw out though, it would start bobbing. Finally, I left her to battle the fish so I could get Lily out. Of course then I had TWO bubbles bobbing constantly. Lily ended up catching the first fish and the entire lake was treated to her high-pitched squeals, laughter, and hollering. You’d have thought she got a new bike or something. We put the fish on the chain, and I tried to get another worm on her hook.

I had been coaching Brinkley on how and when to set the hook on these fish, and she was close to getting it. At some point, I needed to get something from the truck and told the girls I’d be right back. Wouldn’t you know it. I wasn’t gone two minutes, and Brinkley has hooked and reeled in a very nice fish all by herself. She was grinning from ear to ear and made sure the whole lake knew she had landed a whale.

The rest of the morning was pretty much a blur of putting worms on hooks, casting out for them, and taking fish off while one little girl or the other danced around, squealing with delight. They both wanted to hold the fish once they caught it, and then wanted to help put it on the chain. They ended up catching a few too small ones, so they enjoyed watching them swim away once we let them go.

All in all, Brinkley caught 6 fish, and Lily 2. It was a morning of constant action. Each cast had that bubble bouncing up and down. The challenge was getting them hooked. The girls had the time of their lives, and I was thoroughly worn out after 2 ½ hours of it. At about lunch time, the action slowed and I was starved. We loaded up everything and headed back to camp.

Once there, the girls told their battle stories to Mom, and we proceeded to clean the fish. The girls squealed plenty over the “disgusting” guts, etc. Lily has been fascinated by eyeballs for awhile—who knows why—but both girls were super-excited when I popped an eyeball out of a fish for each of them. They walked around holding it for quite a while.  Actually, each eyeball is still sitting in a cup of water out on the picnic table. Tiffeny is not happy about this at all. Especially when she accidentally threw one out onto the grass in the rain tonight and had to stand out there getting wet trying to find it. The whole experience pretty much solidified the fact that the next time we come up, they’ll want to hit the lake again. I think next time, I’ll be sure to have Tiffeny there with me to help put worms on.

Incidentally, as a side note, I was joking with Brinkley and told her that I'd pay her a dollar if she popped the eyeball in her mouth for 10 seconds....she quickly declined.  However, Lily, our wild and crazy one, quickly said she'd do it, no problem.  And to my amazement, she did!!!   It was so funny.  She said it didn't even taste like anything.  Brinkley was pretty sorry that she hadn't risen to the challenge.  Funny girls.