Hunting and Fishing on the Lake

The girls are becoming expert tackle and Power Bait hunters. I think they like hunting for stray fish tackle better than the actual fishing. Well, in fact I know they like it better, because when they catch a fish they get so scared they almost pee their pants!

Nat tried out her new birthday fishing pole the other night. She had me put on some crazy looking pink rubbery thing on the end of her hook. I was raised as a fly-fisher so all these rubbery lures are very foreign to me.

I meant to bend the barb on the hook down, but forgot pliers, and figuring it was unlikely for her to catch anything with a bright pink thing anyway, I wasn't worried about it. Of course 2 minutes after tossing her line overboard she had a fish on!

I immediately had the pole thrust into my hands as the girls commenced to screaming and saying, "Ewww!". I tried to de-hook (?) the fish (who by this time was named Bob), but to no avail (without seriously hurting him). So we towed Bob over to the nearest bank so that Miss Moo could run and get Mike to come help poor Bob return to his family.

Unfortunately with all the drama, I didn't get a picture of Nat's beautiful crappie, Bob, but he was safely unhooked and released back into the lake. (I've always been a catch-and-release kind of girl, and as fast as my girls name fish and become attached to them, I think they will be too.)

At any rate, after that we went hunting again and Nat found these two bobbers that she was extremely proud of.

We found them in this nice little cove almost completely surrounded by cattails.

Such beautiful hunting grounds!