Chasing the Lure

Last weekend found us with an away-from-home-hang-out-with-extended-family escape opportunity.  I was not overly excited.  My idea of an ideal long holiday weekend involves mainly sleeping in, staying in my pajamas, scrapbooking in front of the TV, getting some work done on my computer and catching up on the constant to-do list; it does not involve packing up a family of 6, paying to board the dog, making nice with the relatives and trying to “make memories” in a remote location without internet or even reliable cell phone access.

Shame on me.

I did end up getting some extra sleep.  I did end up getting some offline work done.  I was sort of social (not a strong point for me obviously).  I even skim-reread through an entire book.  And most of all, we made plenty of good (painless) memories.

We all went out the first day trying to see who could catch the most fish, with the ultimate goal of eating them for supper.  I was doing pretty darn well with about 15 to my credit, until I got cold and hungry and went in for lunch.  The ones in charge of the fun filleting job stayed out.  And unbelievably, so did Emily, who had only caught a couple of fish up to that point.

She stayed.  And stayed.  And didn’t come back in until almost evening, when the men came trooping in victorious with an ice chest full of filet pieces from somewhere around 100 fish.  And incredibly, 28 of those were hers.

So, yeah.  We had about 30 people lined up with their plates and we had us a FISH FRY that night!

But then the next day, after many of the family went home, we took our kids back out to fish for fun.  It was a wonderful, sunny day.  And I took my camera.

The race to catch the most was still there, but it was kind of hard to keep up with it in the end.

Hannah got involved as the “fish releaser”.  The kids would reel the fish in, yell for Hannah, get the fish off the hook and pass it to her waiting little hands.  She would creep cautiously toward the edge of the water and with a flourish toss the fish back in with the giddy words “GO HOME!”

Since we were sharing rods, I only threw enough casts to make a token catch, just to say I did.

Emily caught another dozen, including the largest catch of the weekend.

Tyler leapfrogged around Emily in a vain attempt to catch the most by getting to the choicest spots first.

Lauren pouted at being the last one of the crew to snag her first fish, and then decided to turn her attitude around by playing “fishy kissy face”.

Aunt Lizzie finally caught her fair share, although I almost dissolved into too many giggles to capture the photo at the sight of her first-catch “minnow”.

Wes went from one child to the next, changing lures, retracting stubborn hooks, offering encouragement, and even making a few casts when time allowed.

It was a really good weekend.

Left to my own desires, I would have chased the wrong lure last weekend.  Not necessarily a bad one, but maybe just not the best one.  I still love a good weekend at home and always will.  But I’m really glad that for last weekend at least, we had a catch worth remembering.