Fishing with Daddy

By far, the highlight of our Memorial Day weekend was fishing with Daddy. For the week leading up to the trip, Ryan wouldn't stop talking about taking Coralie fishing. I have to admit that I didn't think it would be a big deal to Coralie, but. . . I was wrong.

Maybe the way the fishing adventure started is what made me think it would all be a . . .  flop. Ryan had to hunt all over the lake house to find the fishing poles and tackle boxes, and then he had to spend an hour doing who-knows-what readying the poles. (Actually, I am pretty sure this involved throwing hooks around on the ground for Madeline to find later.) Then Ryan took Coralie to buy a box of worms, which she promptly DUMPED all over the store's floor, sending nasty little worms SCATTERING.

After scooping up the mess with his hands, Ryan paid for the abused worms and then brought them home. He wrangled Coralie into her life jacket (which seems like a ridiculous safety precaution considering the lake had gigantic swells from all the boats that were out) and set up a tiny folding chair for her.

Looooong story short, they caught 14 fish! Coralie enjoyed reeling in her line and even learned to wait a bit after casting before doing so. She loved to check to see if the worm was still on the hook but didn't have much expectation that a fish would also be on the hook.


I don't know how to turn the photo; sorry!

Needless to say, Ryan is the one who caught all the fish. At first, Coralie was terrified and would back away from the fish (which terrified me that she would back right off the dock) without taking her eyes off it. By the end of the weekend, though, Coralie had warmed up to the fish and started having conversations with them

"Why, hello, Mr. Fish! . . . How was your day? . . . Were you at work? . . . What were you doing? "

Then, "Ok, Daddy kick him back in the lake now!"

Ryan never did get Coralie to touch the fish (WHEW), but as soon as one fish had been dismissed, she was demanding another one.

I am actually glad Ryan went to all the effort to take our little girl fishing. I really think they made great memories this weekend, and now Coralie can say that she has in fact been fishing. It seems like everyone has to go fishing at some point to say he has Lived, and you know how I love checking things off a to-do list!