Fishing!

About a month ago, it was date night for Aaron and me. We were tired of doing the same old thing of eating out and then maybe watching a movie if we didn't feel too tired. So we decided to break our rut and do something completely different - go fishing! Aaron's parents have a pond that is stocked with bluegill and catfish and a few bass. So we made some foil packets full of vegetables and hoped to catch some fish to add to that later. Here's my nicely sized packet.

And here's Aarons very large pile for his packet - about double the size of mine.

So we got to his folks and almost immediately it began to downpour. But it looked like it would pass over quickly, so we sat on the back screened in porch eating chocolate and practicing our fishing technique.

After a small delay, the rain stopped and off we went to fish. We caught four fish, however our line was pretty old and brittle and three of them snapped our line. I maganaged to haul in a catfish which we were going to eat. But it was starting to get dark and neither one of us felt much like butchering the fish, so he was granted mercy, though he still had the hook in him as I couldn't get it out and didn't want to reach down his throat to try to retrieve it. So maybe he's not so happy his life was spared. We went on to start our fire, cook our vegetables and eat them in the dark with our fingers as I had neglected to bring along forks. It was a really fun night and we enjoyed it very much.

So last night, we thought it would be fun to take the kids fishing with us since we had so much fun the last time. Ana wasn't so sure she wanted to go when she saw me digging for worms. Then she started to feel very sad for the worms who would all die when we used them. But she got over that once we got to the pond. Unfortunately, we only have two rods, so we had to have the kids take turns, but it worked out okay. The girls and I were fishing for bluegill and the boys were fishing for catfish. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go after the big worms on my worm hunt, so we had only the little worms that only needed a nibble or two from a fish and would come right off the hook. However we did manage to catch two bluegill. Ana caught the first one. I wish I had remembered to bring my camera. It was a very cute little three inch fish. We threw him back. I caught about a 5 inch bluegill - still a bit on the small side, so his life was also spared. Aaron threw in his line and immediately caught a catfish before he could even do anything. He managed to haul him in and we got a nice sized catfish - about 14-15 inches long maybe. He also caught another big fish, but again, it managed to break the line (I think we need to replace it with some heavier line!) and got away. So we decided to not grant this catfish mercy this time. We would eat him for supper! We set to work at cleaning him - which is kind of hard and just a little bit gross. Abby watched for awhile before declaring that she didn't think we should go fishing again. Thankfully Ana, Miss I-Panic-At-The-Sight-Of-Blood, stayed away and didn't watch that part. While Aaron worked on our fish, I cooked our individual foil dinners of vegetables for the kids as they were all getting hungry. Once again, we had to eat them with our fingers as I forgot to bring along forks. DOH! We put the fish fillets in a foil packet with some seasonings and threw it into the fire while we ate our other food. When the fish was done, we all had a sample - not too bad. Then we packed up and went home, but not before looking for a few shooting stars as last night was a very good night for that. We saw a few, much to the delight of the kids. So all in all, it wasn't too bad of a way to spend a family evening. I enjoyed it. Aaron felt like a man for doing manly things like catching fish, cleaning it, and cooking it over a fire and feeding his family with it. I think the kids had fun too - though it was getting late by the end and tiredness was beginning to be a factor in the enjoyment level. We'll see if we end up doing it again. Maybe next time, I'll bring a camera.