Fish'n Derby

ViviAnne and I took Liam, Asa, Darius, Hannah and Sidney to the Fish'n Derby on June 9. It was quite the big deal. You have 30 minutes to fish or time slot was at 11:15 to 11:30. You show up, park, and then get your stuff ready. If you preregister you get a shirt, and every kid gets a fishing pole all hooked up and ready to go. Once you get your stuff you head over to the pond. It is stocked with trout from some local fishery. The pond itself is about 70 or so feet across the short way and maybe 130 feet the long way, shaped in an oval. We head over to the back side of the pond and get the kids ready. Asa is to young to fish and Darius is sitting in his car seat watching to whole thing.

OK, we start fishing. First we are given some worms, big ones. ViviAnne doesn't really know how to get the worm on good so Hannah's worm falls off on the first cast. Liam's cast goes out and over another kids line and they get tangled up for a couple of minutes. Sidney catches the first fish. A nice 12 inch trout. Into the bag it goes, no catch and release here, these fish are for eat'n.

Hannah gets the second fish with the help of one of the event staff on hand. and then Sidney and Hannah each catch another one. With about five minutes left and Liam totally discouraged, I get a nice cast out of him into the deep part of the pond. And walla! Fish on! Liam reels it in and I pick it up for him to take the hook out. But, if you have ever fished with worms before you know that the fish just inhaled the hook and worm and it is in it's gullet. As I pick up the line to grab hold of the fish, the hook rips out of the fish and gets bits of fish gore and blood all over myself and a little on Liam. He is not to happy about this sudden display of carnage and withdraws a little but he still had a good time.

We ended up cooking the fish a day latter on the BBQ. They were pretty good, but Liam didn't want to eat any of them. I think he was a little sad that his fish died like it did. But he did say that he wants to go fishing with me again, so it probably wasn't to traumatic.