First Time Fishermen

I don't remember the first time I went fishing or my first fish. As far as I know, there are no pictures to mark the occasion.

I've been hesitant to take my boys, ages 3 and 5, fishing, not knowing whether they were ready for it. Fishing requires patience, a virtue not exactly common among pre-schoolers and their waterbug attention spans.

Nevertheless, something inside me last week told me it was time. I made a big deal out of it in advance. I took them to a sporting goods store, where we bought new poles for them and bait.

The next morning, I had them out the door by 6:45 a.m. and on a Pleasure Island pier down on Sabine Lake by 7:30 a.m. By the looks on the faces of the anglers already there, fishing was not going so well.

I had yet to rig up the new poles but wanted to get going fast with the fishing, so I got one line from an old pole in the water.

Not 5 seconds later, the bobber went nuts, so I called over my firstborn, Curt, and had him reel in the fish, which turned out to be a small croaker.

The boys jumped for joy, and the fellow anglers' scowls deepened. Here they were, empty-netted, and along comes a dad with a bunch of noisy kids, and they catch a fish in seconds.

What I'd forgotten to lug down from the car was my cell phone, which has a camera. So with the fish pitifully croaking in my hand, we trudged back to the car and then returned to the pier, where I re-hooked the fish to ensure a better photo, which you can find below. I'm not a big fan of staged photos, but I had no choice.

We caught one more croaker, but then things got dull, and the boys got bored.

"I'm hungry."

"I'm thirsty."

"I need go potty."

"I need go poop."

"Daddy, can we go crabbing now?"

After 30 minutes of that, we bailed on the fishing and went to the north end of Pleasure Island for some crabbing, for which I'd brought some kite string, a net and some turkey necks.

It wasn't long before the crabs came scuttling around. However, they seemed to be rather wise, and the bigger ones fled before I could get them within netting distance.

Nevertheless, we did score two tiny crabs, which so terrified the boys that I decided to cut short the crabbing phase of the day's adventure.

We retreated to a playground, where we had a picnic lunch, and we all came home tired, dirty and smelly.

Not a bad way to make that first fishing adventure memorable.