Fishing Follies

We are a fishing family. Yes, even me. Well, if you count sitting in my pink camp chair, reading a book, drinking my iced tea while holding my pink fishing pole, that GI Joe baited and cast for me fishing (and I do). We are surrounded by farm ponds and live about 2 miles from a lake, so at a moment's notice we can leave the zoo behind and be fishing in minutes. During the spring and summer, we go fishing about at least once or twice a week. The fishing is temperamental but the laughs are guaranteed.
Tonight was no exception. It was a gorgeous July evening and we decided to go out to the lake and fish from one of GI Joe's childhood fishing spots. It was a picture perfect evening with the family, enjoying some quality time on the lake teaching the children valuable life lessons and imparting our profound wisdom on them. Oops wrong lake, that wasn't us. Here's the real story.
Within 5 minutes of arriving on the pier, Blade found a dead snake which he promptly came to "show" me. I was trying not to scream as there were other people on the lake but that left me only one other option....jump in the lake to get away from him and the dead snake. GI Joe, not wanting me to embarrass him by doing either of the above items, quickly told him to leave me alone with it and throw it in the lake. The real kicker was when about 30 minutes later GI Joe was reeling in what he thought was a big fish only to discover that same dead snake hooked on his line. Two snake sightings in one night? Yuck! Time to find a new fishing spot.
GI Joe and I were enjoying a brief moment of peace and quiet when the silence was broken by Dakota yelling "Ouch, I hooked my hair!" We looked over and sure enough in a casting attempt gone awry she had hooked her worm in her hair. Miss Independent didn't want any help getting it out, she worked it out on her own. Which is good because I was no help rolling on the ground laughing at her, not that I touch worms anyway.
Not 5 minutes later, GI Joe was adjusting my line and next thing I knew he had accidentally caught a 55 pound Blade bass. We had planned to just catch and release tonight, but this one was just too darn cute so we kept him. Maybe I'll hang him above the mantle.
During all this excitement, I looked over at Ryder sitting next to his pole, propped on a rock, and noticed that his pole was practically bent in half, pulling with the weight of a fish biting. Ryder was sitting right there but instead of paying attention to what his pole was doing, he was taking a "rock shower", pouring pebbles over his head. I mean really what else are you supposed to do, just watch your bobber or something? B-O-R-I-N-G. I mentioned to Ryder that he might want to reel in as he had a fish. He sprung into action and started reeling immediately but when Ryder gets down to crunch time in fishing, he approaches it differently that the vast majority. Instead of reeling until the fish is up on shore, once it gets about 5 feet from shore he goes into freak out mode and instead of continuing to reel he jerks as hard as he can to make the fish come flying out of the water. As you can imagine this works flawlessly...or not. The fish went flying off the hook and the empty hook landed squarely in his sister's shirt. But if you ask him, he'll tell you he caught a big one, he just let it go early. Seriously.
GI Joe got everyone calmed down from the "almost caught one" excitement and helped them all get their lines back in the water. Oh yes, all of them because the moment one gets any action they all drop their poles and come running to help. He had just sat down when Blade started yelling "Dakota caught one! Dakota caught one!" We looked and yep, she caught one....a REALLY REALLY big one. She had to one up her father's 55 lb. Blade bass and caught herself a GUY IN A BOAT. Tears of laughter were streaming down my face as I tried to photograph the event. The guy in the boat didn't seem to find the humor in it like we did so I did not get any pictures of it. But that's one picture that will forever be imprinted in my memory. I told her next time go for the yacht.
GI Joe was getting a little bit frustrated as he had mistakenly thought he would actually get to fish. Instead he spent the evening in a bit of a round robin from one kid to another to me to another, untangling lines, changing lures, casting, etc. I had to remind GI Joe that the Outdoor Channel wasn't there to film us doing the next fishing show, although they should because that would be one very entertaining fishing show (if there is such a thing) and that we were just there to have fun. Easy for me to say as I dangled my hook in front of his face and asked him to please remove that yucky moss from my hook so the fish could actually get to the worm. (I don't touch moss either.) I don't understand why he wasn't enjoying it as much as we were. Weird huh?
Finally, after the special vein in GI Joe's head started to pulsate I suggested that we call it a night before any serious injuries or strokes were sustained. The boys had moved on from fishing to throwing rocks in the lake and playing with frogs so it was only Dakota we had to pry away and by then she was yelling at the boys blaming them for scaring all the fish away . At least this time they hadn't jumped in and scared the fish away. That was last time. Sigh.
As we were walking back to the truck from our adventurous night of fishing, I suddenly saw a full moon. Not in the sky either. Instead it was my adorable son, Blade. His shorts were a little loose and as he walked by a bush it caught on his shorts and before he could say bluegill they were around his ankles. I thought it a fitting way to end our evening. At least no one fell in this time.

63 CASTS THROWN + 16 SNAGS UNSNAGGED + 3 PEOPLE HOOKED + 6 WORMS USED + 0 FISH CAUGHT = A MILLION MEMORIES MADE