I wasn't planning on it...

but since the government tells me I shouldn't maybe I will. I like to fish, but when I want to eat fish, I just go to the grocery store. Not squeamish about cleaning a fish, it is just less hassle.



Anyway, the people who would eat catfish, or yuck, carp, out of a river running through a good sized city are not going to be persuaded otherwise by some stupid sign. Don't get me wrong, the river's pretty clean, but still, we're talking about long lived animals that suck the shtuff off the bottom.

I remember one time I was fishing in the Salmon Falls River with some friends. I pulled a 4 foot long eel out, it fought like it was a sea monster, but I wussed out and wouldn't take it off the hook. A friend stepped on its head while trying to take the hook out and it coiled around his leg. Eels suck.

Pictures of Fish

Daughter's first fish of the day. Caught within seconds of her first cast into the water. I also wanted to mention that she put her own worms on the hook, voluntarily, but in true girl fashion she gave the worms names. My great grandfather once told me "If you find a girl who can put worms on a hook, marry her. She's a keeper." That's great advice, but I would like to expand on that with my own little bit of homespun wisdom for any aspiring husbands in the distant future, "Buzz off. I hate you."























The boy's record bluegill. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was big enough that his little fishing pole couldn't reel it in all the way and I had to pull it in by hand. The fish was fat enough that I had a hard time getting my oversized female hands around its belly when removing the hook.

Fishin

Went fishing today with the kids. The boy caught the biggest bluegill I've ever seen in person. The only thing I caught was a hook under my finger nail. It doesn't matter if you are black, white, French, German or Martian, that hurts. Pretty good odds it will get infected too.

Ah, Now I Get It

All these years I've been using the unimproved clinch knot, I wish someone had told me that they had improved it.

More Fishing Chronicles

No pictures of this past Saturday's fishing expedition to the Huguenot Flatwater area on the James River. My camera is on the fritz. Too many trips in my backpack on the river or maybe it was from taking video of a recent thunderstorm?

I took the two oldest kids. They didn't seem to have much fun. The oldest because his fishing pole is a piece of crap and because his dad gets mad at him for his inability to get the concept of letting the piece of chicken liver sit at the bottom of the river for more than 30 seconds and the girl, well, she had fun, I guess, building a house for tadpoles on the river bank.

I had fun. Caught three feisty channel catfish roughly about 5 pounds each. Woulda had two more except for my inability to tie a tight knot on my hooks that day.

This was my first time catching channels. They croak at you while you are holding them attempting to remove the hook. Yes, the first time that happened I jumped out of my skin and dropped the fish.

Quickly googling "channel catfish croak" I found this forum and it answered the croaking question. More importantly it answered "the why I wear gloves" question, which nobody asked but I feel inclined to answer once again regardless.

Kittyfish

Here I am with a catfish I caught three weeks ago with Rob in the James River.














Why am I wearing gloves you ask? Because catfish secrete poison from their skin. Duh.

No, really, I had no desire to stick my bare hand into an animal's mouth who could literally swallow said hand whole. The glove on my right hand was merely because I didn't want to look stupid wearing only one glove.

I also caught a really big goldfish, err, carp, that day. It had teeth as big as me. I dragged it to shore and we safely removed the hook with pliers.