One year my grandson Andy was going to a hockey camp in Minnesota, so Julie and Stacey decided we should take grandpa camp on the road. So, we rented a cabin on a lake Chetek in Wisconsin, and Julie would drive up to drop Andy off at his hockey camp and come back and join us. The cabin wasn’t very big, so we were kind of crowded in. But it had all the comforts we needed.
It was the perfect opportunity to teach PD and Libby how to fish. We had a nice dock just down from the cabin with plenty of room for fishing. their idea was to just cast the line out and pull in the fish. No so. We had to teach them how to tie hooks, weights and bobbers on their line. Then the fun part started. They had to learn how to put a worm on the hook. When they started, goosing butterflies would be a more appropriate description of their efforts. But they eventually got it done. The next lesson was how to cast without hitting each other with the poles. This actually went quite smoothly.
Now we have the lines in the water, and they need to be patient as they wait for a fish to bite. Oh, the excitement when the bobber is pulled under the water. They begin jerking and cranking sometime pulling the hook out of the fish. They learned how to set the hook and then wind the fish in. I was pleased with their progress.
Then came the real fun. They had to learn how to clean the fish. They had to scale them, and the gut and gill them. They took to this like skilled fishermen, well with a little help. It was at this time I learned that I had failed to teach my own kids how to clean fish, only how to catch them. We all learned something this trip. We made a couple of tries at fishing out of a boat but found it better at this point in their lives to stay on the dock.
