Stuff and Mount It!

This past Saturday was "Take A Kid Fishing" at the Jeffers Bend Environmental Center and Kiesha and I were brave enough to take Ruben and Marissa angling for some guppies. We were out there finding Nemo with our baited hook.

At first we thought we would go down to the little creek and see what was biting there. After 30 minutes it was hopeless - we weren't getting any bites, our hooks kept getting snagged on downed tree branches, they would get hung on the creek embankment, and I kept hitting tree branches while casting. So we looked for greener pastures. Ruben and I were determined to catch a fish. We had our super duper poles, our lucky hats, and lucky worms.

We thought we would catch a 20 pounder down at the pond. We hit the first open spot at the pond, next to a red-haired boy, with freckles, and a straw-hat to boot. I felt at a disadvantaged next to him because I was guessing his "paw" probably taught him all the ins and outs of fishing in these parts of the woods. Well Ruben and I thought we would do better by casting out two lines, increase our odds of catching the big one. Well, we got lots of nibbles and lost a couple of worms to a hungry lil fish out there but no cigar. Ruben had to sit down a bit and think about our situation. Little did I know that, while we had our lucky hats and lucky worms on our side we did not have our lucky Marissa out there working a line.

It took Marissa all of 5 minutes to catch a fish. Mommy came down after taking the photos above and asked if Marissa could fish. I gave her my line and she tugged on the pole and moved it here and there and Mommy kept asking her to hold it steady but it turns out all the tugging and moving worked. Who knew!

We were very proud of Marissa catching her first fish. Ruben caught his first fish at last years "Take a Kid Fishing" day. Back then he didn't want to touch the fish and take it off the hook and he didn't want to do it this year either. Marissa was all about the fish. She wanted to play with it.

What luck. Well, Kiesha thought we needed photo evidence because no one out there would probably believe us, but she did catch a fish. Well, it was a small fish, probably bait for catching a larger fish, but nevertheless her first catch. We threw it back in the pond, but we should have had it stuffed and mounted over her crib. :-)

P.S. If you don't believe that I was fishing next to Tom Sawyer, take a look at the little boy over my right shoulder. Hahahahaha.