Very First Fish!!!

On Tuesday the kids and I are going to be heading to Saskatchewan for a bit over a month and Daddy doesn't know what he's going to do without us - awww! He said it's going to be pretty hard looking at the fishing poles and not being able to go out with the kids - so . . . on Sunday morning we kinda skipped church and Braden, Emma and Kaleb went out fishing from early morning to about 4 pm!!! They had a blast!

This time they set themselves on an old floating dock (I'm pretty sure it belonged to the family of ducks that kept on going on it to sleep on the far side - kinda cute.) There was another family on the dock beside theirs that were fishing with just fishing lines and no rods. It seemed that every time they put one down they'd suddenly be pulling up a fish and throw it into their cooler - it was pretty incredible!

Kaleb is an entirely new boy when he starts fishing - it's actually quite hilarious! The boy who is always having to be on the move and making some kind of noise suddenly is telling everyone to "be quiet - I'm fishing!" and sitting as still as he can. He loves watching the fish come up to the hook and as he was just hanging out suddenly we heard "oh, oh, oh, oh, um, um, help!". We looked over and there was Kaleb holding up his fishing rod with a fish on it - he caught his first fish!!! He was so excited and scared at the same time because he didn't have a clue what to do (and I'm pretty sure that Daddy felt the same way - hee hee!) So we (as in Daddy) got it off the hook and the kids filled up a bag with water for it. I ran back home and got a cooler for it so that the kids could start their collection of fish.

Emma was wanting to catch one too and she figured that Kaleb's spot was better than hers so she decided to get out on a rock closer to where he was to fish. Suddenly we heard a HUGE splash and looked over. There was Emma clamoring up the edge of the water - soaking wet! Poor girl had slipped on a rock and fallen in - but don't worry - after that she decided that it was so hot out that she had Daddy dip her in off of the dock, over and over again - so she was okay.

Navia - well - needless to say after feeding the ducks until they didn't want any more bread, and walking around the entire area, and watching the kids and Daddy fish, and eating up all the snacks, and (you get the point...) she was bored silly. She decided that it was more fun to find a picnic bench and get some rest instead of fishing - it was really cute to see!

At the end of the fishing day Kaleb had caught THREE FISH, Emma none and Daddy none. But, we had 3 fish in a cooler swimming around and now what were we supposed to do??? We thought that we'd give them to the family that was catching all the many fish beside us, but when we did Kaleb started crying about his pet fish that he couldn't keep. Then, it didn't help, because the mom said that her son was keeping one of the small ones so that he could see it grow - yikes!!! Now what were we supposed to do??? Instead of taking our 3 fish, they gave us a small fish for Kaleb to keep!!! HELP!!!

After much crying and bribery we decided to drive to Manotick and have a "release the fish" party! We took them under the bridge (and Daddy got a head full of fish water as it splashed on him - hee hee!) and let them go and then went out for ice cream. It was a full day but a really really good one!

Daddy might just have to go out fishing while we're gone so that he can start keeping up with his 5 year old!!!

First Time Fishing!

Emma and Kaleb have been after Daddy to take them fishing for the past two years and today Daddy decided that there was no better way to celebrate Canada Day than to take his kids fishing at the Nicholas Island lock. So - Emma came bursting into the bedroom at 5:00 am to wake us up and let us know it was time to go fishing and was met with a "I didn't mean this early" groan from her dad.

We got away at 7:45 am (if you know our family this in itself is a huge feat!) and it only took us 5 minutes to get to our destination. We got down to the dock and the kids set up their chairs and their poles and both started demanding that daddy hook their line - NOW! It was quite hilarious to see because not only has Daddy not taken the kids fishing before, he doesn't know how to fish so he was teaching himself at the exact same time!!! So there he was, trying to figure out the kids fishing poles, baiting them, casting them and then trying to do his. And of course, as soon as he would go to start on his own one of the kids would say that they needed their's cast again - and so it would go! But, by the end of the trip Emma was making some perfect casts - I'm sure even her mom's cousin & wife, Brandon and Nicole, would be proud!!!

Then, the kids decided that the fake bait wasn't good enough and they wanted Daddy to put real worms on their hooks. All I can say is that I'm sooooo glad that I wasn't the one doing it!!! Emma had a blast with the real worms because the fish were pretty smart and would keep on nibbling them, bit by bit, and never actually take the hook! And she was pretty brave too - she wanted to do the worms herself!

Daddy's first time hooking the worm - ewww!!!

Kaleb, well, he was the first one to get a nibble - and when he looked at his bait he couldn't believe that the fish had eatten the tail off of it! It was quite hilarious watching this all unfold!

where's the tail???

Oh, and all at the same time there was Navia wanting desperately to be a part of all the action - she wanted to fish too! So, the two of us took a few walks around the area, watching the boats go in and out of the locks, seeing how many fish we could see in the water (and there were quite a few to count!) and watching the mommy duck and all her babies. This made is a little quieter around the dock for the kids and all the other fisher"people" around - hee hee!


In the end the morning was a perfect morning because both kids had a lot of nibbles, Kaleb had a fish jump out of the water and splash him and we didn't have to bring home any fish - YAY!!! Oh - and Braden - well - not one nibble!!! But . . . he did say that he loved the morning and can't wait to take the kids out again!

The big catches of the day!!!