Fishing!

We children have always had fond memories of going fishing with daddy. The night before we'd go, Momma would go through the list of clothes we had to wear, then we'd collect them all and make men on the living room floor with our coats, pants, hats, gloves, and scarves. Then we'd head of to bed while daddy worked on the fishing poles, tying on the hooks, etc. Then we'd wake up around 3:00, and, still half asleep, don our layers of clothes. Daddy would make hot chocolate, fill the thermos, grab the containers of cinnamon roll, and bananas. (we had to eat a banana before we could have a cinnamon roll. We don't observe that tradition any more.=) Then we'd pile into the car and fall asleep on the forty-five minute drive to Lake Padden.

But as we got older, the older girls didn't think that that the delight of cracking a fish's neck was worth waking up early and being frozen to death. This year, I was the first girl in our family to get a fishing license.

The last couple years, we've been breaking our traditions. In 2007, Jon was in the hospital, so we didn't go on opening day, but the day after that. Last year and this year, the Christian Heritage Home School conference has been on opening day, so we've just gone the week after that. This year, we broke the "cinnamon roll tradition". Instead of that, I made peanut butter cookies. We only had hot chocolate the first day and tea on the other days.

We first went fishing on Tuesday. Since it wasn't opening day and we didn't need to worry about not getting "our spot", we left at five forty-five, getting to the lake at six thirty. It was very windy that day, so we had to find another spot.=( That morning, I made a record of the most hooks and weights lost. (Daddy called me Tarzan because I lost all the hooks and weights in the trees.) It seemed that every time I cast, the hook got stuck higher and higher up in the tree. That morning, we also had a whole bunch of snails attach themselves to the line. I don't ever remember that happening. That day, Matthew and I caught the biggest fish that we've ever caught in that lake; they were both about sixteen inches long, and very hard to kill.=) We only got seven that day and we had to leave early because I had writing class at twelve thirty. (We got home at twelve fifteen!)

On Wednesday, we left about the same time as Tuesday, and we got to go to our old spot. We had a bigger time stretch because I had piano lessons at eleven. But this time, we caught twenty fish (our limit) before we had to go.(That was because we were at "our spot"=) I didn't try casting then.=)

Yesterday morning, (Friday) we left a little later than before, but we didn't have a time pinch. Our only obstacle was that we were low on Power Bait. One highlight: Joe caught a cray fish tangled on his line. We fished until we ran out or bait (we got twelve fish), and then we headed back home. (No, I didn't try casting again.=)

Matthew and me with our big fish. (On Tuesday, the spot where we were was very muddy, with a steep bank, and only about a foot-wide level area before in dropped three feet down into the water. We don't normally get this muddy.)