Fish On!

My son loves to fish, reel in a fighter, bring it up to the boat, touch it, grab it, release the barbless hook ... and then throw it back before it is too late. He has grown a lot in the last few years in that he is now mature enough to understand that while he is not interested in keeping the fish, he is more calm about others bringing their fish on board their boat and to their table.

As he put it - Grandad's boat, Grandad's rules.

My son stayed in our boat, however, during our camping adventure (smile) so as to ensure Our boat, Ours Rules. And while I quietly shared my son's comment to my father, I hadn't with my mother, and it was my mother who was in the boat when my dad caught his first fish from that lake, and who gave him the look of  You are throwing that back, right? (per my daughter's observation while in their boat).

Observing from our boat at that moment - the three of us were cheering, and then ... we were confused as we saw the fish released back into the lake. We didn't understand what had just transpired as we were too far away to talk. We learned of it later that evening in the privacy of my daughter's retelling.

So, my husband enjoyed an early morning fish trip by himself and caught a rather nice trout. He put it in the Live Well that my son had invented earlier in the week (a simple camping tub filled with lake water to toss the fish into until the return to shore to show to the family, and then released).  That morning, with the nice trout in the Well, my husband called our son to "discuss the situation."

The result was a trout - already prepped for dinner when he returned to shore. My son wanted his Grandad to enjoy a fish while camping, so he compromised with the deal that he would not have anything to do with seeing, touching, acknowledging the fish pre-dinner as it was caught on our boat. Everything was taken care as agreed, and all was fine. To him, the fish came from the market. It worked.

During the trips when my son was on the boat, it was all about catch and release. I am sure the count was at 14 during the week between the two boats. My son enjoyed observing the fish in the Live Well and feeding them bait; his little experiment to see which foods they went for, and which ones they avoided. Brilliant really.

Fish On! What fun to enjoy the sport of catch and release.