Fishing with the kiddos

I mentioned in a previous post that we enjoy watching the Wild Kratt's. The kids love the animated part where the Kratt brothers rescue animals from poachers who would use the animals in fashion, cooking and robots. Yeah, the last one confuses me a bit too.

Two episodes have managed to shape my children's minds in no way I could imagine. You may recall the earthworm episode that now has my daughter and I "rescuing" worms from certain death on warm sidewalks. The other episode is about Bass fishing. In the episode they use lures and practice catch and release. After watching this one episode, my kids felt they were now experience fishermen and wanted to go fishing.

For several months my  kids have wanted to go fishing at a lake on Camp Pendleton, Lake O'Neal. Unfortunately, when Military Dad and I had this bright idea, the lake was in the process of being drudged. This process pretty much messes up the lake for a couple of months, so we had to inform the kiddos, it just wasn't going to happen.

One weekend we had nothing planned, which in of itself is a weird concept. We asked the kids what they wanted to do and Princess mentioned fishing. It had been three months since the drudging was completed, so the lake should be back to normal. The plan was to eat a picnic, rent a small boat and enjoy watching the kids catch some big fish. (The lake happens to be stocked and is catch-and-release). We loaded up a small picnic and the Cars and Barbie fishing poles and set off.

When we arrived at Lake O'Neal, we sat down at the picnic tables and ate a picnic. Since I was wearing my beach-going flip-flops, I managed to get stung by a yellow jacket....on the arch of my foot. In the midst of tears, a lady, who happened to be a nurse, came over and removed the stinger. This whole time, my kids didn't stop eating, they had their priorities.

The wonderful nurse explained how she brought her grandson fishing and he was easily catching small fish right off the dock. MD and I figured since this was the kid's first time fishing (ever) we would try the dock first, before renting a boat. It turned out to be a great idea.

The nurse and her grandson were leaving so they left their worms with us and we headed down to the dock.When we pull that first night crawler out to attach to the hook, I get a good look at my children's faces. The looks on their faces were putting the hook, the worm and fishing together. Oh crap, now I remember both Wild Kratt's episodes and begin thinking of ways to explain myself.

Little Dude asks why we have to use worms. MD, not seeing either episode explains how the fish like to eat worms. Princess then chimes in about how we should use lures. MD has no idea what he walked into and I should probably help him. (I don't. I'm still thinking of ways to explain this so everything will be alright.)

Minutes of MD explaining the concept of fishing to the kids pass. Finally, MD and I have managed to bait the hooks and move on to casting the line. Little Dude gets his line in first and within seconds he already has "a bite." Princess' line goes in next and she starts getting "bites."

Little Dude's first catfish!

The catfish is about 4-5 inches.

Princess' first crappie!

Crappie is well, it's small.

Little Dude's second fish, Bluegill.

Now we are catching incredibly small fish as soon as we put the hook back in the water. Little Dude and Princess completely forget about the earthworms and get lost in catching fish. During the next 20 minutes, the fish are actually biting so fast, MD and I don't have time to take pictures!

Little Dude manages to catch a catfish and a Bluegill in 20 minutes. His hooks were swallowed so we had to almost surgically remove them to ensure the fish would survive. Princess managed to catch a catfish, 2 Bluegill and a Crappie in that 20 minutes.

We decide we have had a great time fishing and want to go out on a boat. I get this brilliant idea (it was actually one of my dumber ones), to rent a paddle boat. The dumb part was that the wind was blowing pretty well. I left out the whole part of actually having to power the boat by pedaling; I figured that was implied as a stupid idea. The only bright idea we had after renting the stupid boat was that we would pedal INTO the wind and float back towards the dock.

For the next 15 minutes, MD and I pedal, and pedal, and pedal....and pedal. I may have downplayed how much the wind was actually blowing, because we got about 50 feet from the dock. At this point, my legs are burning and I decide to call it "float time." We floated for about a minute before realizing the wind was blowing us away from the dock. MD and I decided at this point the boat ride was over and struggled to get the boat back to the dock.

During this painful experience, the kids are enjoying themselves and trying to get us to take the boat out further. They had no clue that MD and I just completely burned off both our lunch and breakfast for that day, and that we were desperately hoping the pain in our legs would go away enough to make the climb back up the dock, to the car.

I now understand why my parents took me out on a paddle boat once and then we never did that again. MD and I can now say "we did that" and never do it again. The day will come when they will have kids and say to themselves, "Remember that time when mom and dad took us out on one of those? We should do that, it was fun!" Then I hope MD and I are both there when they pedal that damn thing back to the dock and walk up with that look on their face that says, "Ah-ha, never again!"