C'mon In. The Water's Fine!

My youngest child, Little Guy, has proven himself an able fisherman. He has spent the last three days on my aunt and uncle's dock with a cane pole and a bucket of Catawba night crawlers, catching bass and blue gill. Today he caught 18 fish!

I decided to try my hand at fishing, with the pole that the Hunny picked up at WalMart. To replace the cane pole which Little Guy snapped on his first catch - a big bass. Don't I look like I know what I'm doing? Not. Not a fan of the fishing. At all.





When I was in college, my Lil' Bro, who LOVED to fish, took me out with him one afternoon. He carried the poles and a paper bag full of cut up steak for bait. We lived at the mouth of the Mississippi River, where he usually caught red fish or bass - at least, that's what he brought home for dinner. Mmmm. He'd scale and gut them on the brick front porch, then hose everything down. One of the reasons I never fished was the "You catch it, you clean it" rule. Fortunately it didn't apply to eating it.

So we walked over the levee and Lil' Bro casts and casts. He comes up with a big blue crab and pops it into the steak bag, so I ask what he plans to do with that cute little crab. He says, "Kill it."

What am I supposed to do with that? Of course I tell him he's going to do no such thing! He laughed at me and cast again. Indignant, I reached into the bag and grabbed the crab.

Now y'all, growing up on the Mississippi, every time I'd come down the back side of the levee toward the river, hundreds of little fiddler crabs would go skittling in every direction, running for cover. We'd sit and wait for them to come back out, catching them by the rear, where they couldn't reach us with that one big ol' claw. They were so cute, and my friends and I would hold them by the rear and make them fight. Then let them go. So when I grabbed that blue crab, I knew enough to grab it by the rear, where it couldn't reach me with it's big claws. Yeah right. That sucker reached around and grabbed hold of my finger.

I flung that crab out across the rocks so fast! It went flying, bouncing on the rocks at the base of the levee. Me, screaming at the top of my lungs to my brother: "KILL IT! KILL IT!" Him: laughing. I think that was the last time I went fishing.



Until today. I still don't like it. But my Little Guy? His great-grandmother has convinced him that he needs to come visit often and keep fishing. I think he might just do that. Me? I'm coming back for the crawfish. :)

Until I write again (from home!) ...

Flea