If there’s one thing my 12-year-old Ryan excels at (besides video games and annoying his sister), it’s fishing. This is the carp he caught yesterday on his first outing of 2009, off his uncle’s property in Lake Erie waters, using a pole and pre-loaded tackle box he was gifted this past Christmas. Of course, since carp aren’t all that edible the fish is now back in the water, but that’s one hefty fish!
I recall the first time I took Ryan fishing. He was three, and was standing in a lifejacket on the end of a dock in front of me at a campground in Jackson, Michigan. He was just kind of standing there, dunking in the hook that was hanging from one of those little Bugs Bunny kiddy fishing rods. There I was behind him with a ten-foot rod, casting and reeling, casting and reeling. After a while he said, “Daddy, now what do I do?” He turned around … and there was an 8″ trout on his hook! Yup, first catch of that year for the whole family, at three years old.
And people wonder why I haven’t fished since then …