With summer upon us and the heat of July hugging us like a prickly blanket, my kiddo was itching to go Fishing. It has been years since he was interested in fishing, so we first needed to acquire some gear. Lucky for me, my father had a few fishing items available for use, but we still needed to purchase a decent fishing pole. Being that we didn’t want this to be a bank breaker activity, we choose the middle of the road $50 fishing rod and reel combo at Cabela’s. {You can spend at little or as much as your choose; there was plenty of selections for every angler. The staff was super helpful as well when looking at all the options.}
Next, we had to clean out the tackle box, sorting through the bobbers/floaters, hooks, weights, pliers, crank baits, lures, old fishing license and whatever else had been in there since last opened. OK, so I didn’t really know what I was looking at or sorting through but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that my teenager knew what was missing, what needed to be tossed and that a trip to the local fishing store was in order.
My kiddo searched, hunted and watched countless fishing videos on the internet looking for tips, tricks and the best lures for different types of fish. Being that we would be fishing mainly for Blue Gills and Bass in our local town, he made his list of his desired crank baits and chatter baits.
The first day, I decided I wasn’t into fishing; I was just along for the ride, I wanted to relax, read my book and offer some (unsolicited) advise about fishing. (Really, all you need to know about fishing is hooking the worm, casting the line in just the right spot, feel for the tug and then reel him in, right?)
I was full of advise and had all sorts of recommendations for catching that sly fish that was toying with my son. Until he told me to go back to reading my book.
Then it was on. I decided in that very moment I would be purchasing my very own rod and reel (exactly like my son’s), would be stocking my own tackle box and the competition was on! Bring on the games kiddo; your mother is going to take you down.
Needless to say, there was a lot more to know about reeling in a fish (shhh… I wasn’t about to tell that to my teenager), but I did hold my own. I will admit the first few times I had to bait my hook with a real worm, it was a little displeasing, but I was determined to do it myself and not ask for any assistance. However, I still needed my son to know how important he was in my fishing adventure, so I was insistent that he unhook all my catches.
We decided a little friendly competition was exciting (after all we enjoyed counting fish) but we also agreed we were having just as much fun spending time together unplugged and perfecting our skill.
After all, this is what it is really about. So, while, we took a few days off from fishing, we have new locations scoped out and will be back at it soon.
