Hook, Line, and Sinker

First we need to break down the term "Father's day fishing trip." Father, being the first word, needs to be the first word that we look at... a father is someone who has a whole bunch of mini "him and hers" running around, fighting, playing, sleeping, eating, and just causing general amusement and stress. For some reason in the definition of father we find that it falls on his head to pass the information he knows, no matter how little, onto those mini "him and hers." The next set of words "day fishing trip" is not really code of any sort.... but when we put them together we find that the real meaning of "Father's day fishing trip" is not a trip in which "father" has a chance to fish, but instead has the chance to pass his knowledge ,again no matter how little, onto his "mini-me's." I felt that it would be good to share this very pertinent information to those of you out there that might be confused.

The day all started with an early, or semi early, Saturday morning before father's day. Our church has put on a fishing trip up at Clear Lake for the past 7 years. So being a dad and all, we usually try to make it. We are always looking for a chance to have BBQed chicken and hang out with a bunch of fun people. We tend to be the youngest people there, but it good for us...Tonya could handle having a little maturity rub off on her :)

So our early morning turned into us arriving at what would be considered more of an early afternoon, around noon. But when you are running 5 kids around with you, that is both early....and early enough. We got there and tried the eat lunch but the kids went strait to playing. It was a beautiful day so, after we got them to calm down and eat a little lunch, we decided to rent a boat to try our hand at fishing.

Once we got all the kids on the boat we started to realize how small the boat was...or maybe how big our family is getting :) Kutler handled the bow with authority, crying and whining, sure that we were all going to die because he has to sit alone.

I sat in the middle, right behind Kutler, where I could hear all about his distress. Tonya sat just behind me with one of the girls, they alternated with each other all the time. It was convenient that she was sitting in between me and the girls, that way she could share HER knowledge, since it was maybe just a little more than mine.

I was still needed for cutting the worms in half though. Jacoy and Acacia sat at the very back mostly, where they could hang their rods out of the back while we trolled the lake.

We had several bites and Jacoy finally caught a fish. It was a highlight of the day and I think she is becoming "hooked" on ending the lives of all the little sub marine animals.

Karly was Karly...we thought of just pushing her over but there was a lot of other boats out there. She had a lot of fun and was a lot braver than Kutler. Maybe a little too brave, she didn't really have any fear of falling out of the boat so Tonya was in constant stress. I just figured she could dry off if she fell in. Dad vs. Mom/responsibility vs. compassion/Jerk vs. loving...it's all in perspective.

After about an hour and half we decided to head in so that Tonya could feed Kodi and give the kids a chance to stretch and run a little. (That is a long time in a small boat.) Oh yeah, Kutler calmed down after just a little while and started really getting into all of it and even had a hook in the water for while.

Later we did get back out on the lake again, I took Jacoy and Acacia with me and Tiffany this time, and Kutler with with Grandma and Grandpa. Jacoy and Acacia had some hits but didn't catch one....I did though and let Acacia reel it in so that she could see the "fun" of fishing isn't just sitting in a boat with a fishing pole for 3 hours.

Kutler caught a fish also while with Grandma and Grandpa. Which we all heard about...from across the lake...He yelled and hollered for quite while about his fish.



I have heard that the success of a hunting/fishing trip is not in the actual harvesting of animals, but rather, in the act of just getting out and doing it safely and having fun. So, this trip was a textbook "success" then; and we even got to catch a couple of fish.