Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy.....

My parents have a stocked pond behind their house.  The kids have been excited about getting to fish.

Like...REALLY excited.

My dad and I went to the store early in the week to get a few fishing poles and the kids eagerly rushed down to the waters edge after dinner.  One fishing pole was defective and never worked from the start.

They drew numbers out of a hat to make things fair and Jordan was the lucky one who went first.  Shortly thereafter, there was a tug on his line and he proudly reeled in his very first fish.

Which meant that someone had to take it off the hook.
My parents didn't want to and Jeff wasn't here yet.
That left me.
Oh goody.
My mom had some surgical gloves so that I could avoid having my hands smell like fish for the next 47 days.
Have gloves.  Will de-hook fish.

Except that the hook was in there so good that we couldn't get it out.
We had to keep putting the fish in the bucket of water to revive it and then would try again.
We never did get the hook out.
Poor little fishy.

We decided not to fish anymore that night because our hooks were too small and we didn't want a pond full of fish with hooks stuck in their mouths.

Night two:  Correct hooks.

All my siblings came over with their kids so we had a large crew wanting to fish.  My brothers owns a fly shop and canoe livery, so he was the resident expert on fishing.

I can't even remember who caught this fish but soon afterwards, the fishing line got hopelessly tangled and that was the end of all the fun.

Three time's a charm, right?

Third night:  New fishing pole, and stick with fishing line tied on.

Don't laugh.

The stick actually worked better.

It helps that when you throw the baited hook in the water, about 20 fish try to bite it.  One of them is bound to hook itself.

Some of the Honduran mission team came over for dinner and woohoo...Kevin was a fisherman.  He patiently fixed their pole and helped them cast.  This was their pole.

This was our pole.

Yep...that stick that Jake is holding was our pole.  

And it worked.

We caught one after another.

It didn't take long for Zoey and Jordan to decide they wanted to take the hooks out by themselves.

Jake's fish was so anxious to get away from him, that he flopped around on the grass until his hook came out.  Then as Jake tried to pick him up, he continued to flop all the way down to the pond and back into the water.

It was unbelievable!

Taylor, Jeff, and Molly arrived Friday night and Taylor has been out there fishing quite a bit.  He has gotten some bigger ones but I haven't been here to photograph them.

At least he says he got some big ones.