Fishus Interruptus

I was going to take HannahC fishing yesterday, just the two of us. But then The Mrs. decided the playroom needed painting, so I ended up with both childrens. It's tough taking both childrens fishing because, if they're both fishing, they each catch a fish about every 3 minutes. Thus, I end up running back and forth between the two of them to unhook fish.

They can't fish next to each other because they fight.

After catching a couple fish, MaxieC gets bored. Then, he starts to do things that are annoying. Like screaming. Or "playing with the worms", which involves dumping all the bait out and then squealing how they're getting away then putting them back. Or throwing rocks into the water where HannahC is fishing. Or whining about how bored he is.

Usually, he does all that stuff in rapid succession.

Anyways, we finally, finally got to the pond after all the sunscreen smearing and finding of shoes and packing of drinks and wipees. It takes, I estimate, 5x as long to take The Childrens anywhere if'n The Mrs. knows they're going than if she doesn't. I often pack up the kids and then just yell into the house that we're leaving and skeedattle before she catches on.

HannahC noted, as we were pulling into the lot, that she was sorry for losing her hook last time we went, which reminded me that I never re-rigged her line with a swivel. OK. I have extra swivels in the tackle box.

I dug around to find the swivels, locating one at the bottom in the back corner, and tied it onto the line. Then, as I'm digging around for a hook, I accidentally bump the tackle box with my toe, and the whole thing dumps into the weeds. So I spent the next 5 minutes rooting around in the weeds to try to find all my tackle, most of which I recovered successfully. Probably lost a couple sinkers, but I found all the lures.

I open up the worm carton, and there are no worms in it.

"What happened to to worms?" We had about 15 when we started fishing on Thursday.

Silence.

"Did we use up all the worms last time?"

A meek response, "Yes, Daddy."

"So we used up all the worms, carried the worm box home, put it in the refrigerator, then carried it all the way back out here? Why didn't you say that we were out of worms?"

"I forgot cuz I got my hook caught in the weeds and lost it."

Oh well. What is done is done. Pack everything back up and back to the truck, off to Jax to get worms.

Get back to the pond and get the gear out again about 40 minutes later. We start fishing.

MaxieC catches two fish very quickly. HannahC is jealous, so she comes to stand where MaxieC is fishing. MaxieC gets bored, so he tells me to hang on to his pole because he's not done fishing, but he needs a little break.

He proceeds to play with the worms.

I catch two more fish with MaxieC's pole. HannahC still hasn't caught anything because she loses her mind if someone else catches more than she does, and she keeps taking her hook out of the water.

MaxieC is really done now, so I pack away his stuff and decide to bass fish in the little corner where I know there are bass.

I got out a floating Rapala of the type the bass in that corner like, and cast it out there. I see about five bass come out from under the logs and follow it.

Big thunder clap.

"Hey kids, we're going to have to pack up soon. There's a storm moving in, and I don't want to get hit by lightning."

Cast again at the bass. Little nibble, but I set the hook too soon and lost it.

Cast again, get stuck on the logs.

Bigger thunder clap.

Lightning in the sky to the west.

"Hey kids, we gotta go now!"

Or, just as soon as I can untangle myself. Which I managed to do and not lose my lure.

I packed everything up, and we started heading for the truck. HannahC and MaxieC got into a panic because of the thunder and started running. MaxieC fell down and skinned his knee and decided it would be best to stay put and just cry.

HannahC picked him up and carried him.

About 6 feet.

I had all the fishing gear, plus all the ridiculous stuff The Mrs. packed for us, so I couldn't carry him. I told him to man up and get to the truck.

He did.

It started to rain about 2 minutes later.

What a bust.