Boogers on the Wall

Here are the six beauties we caught at the trout farm.

I have been fishing more times this year than I have ever been in my entire life. Not because I have found a new love for the hobby that lets you bait innocent swimmers hook line and sinker, but because my boys have.

They have asked me to take them fishing more times than I can count this summer. And although I was reluctant at first to take them on my own, my feelings have changed.

We absolutely love fishing. Who wouldn’t love spending time with her little boys enjoying nature and doing something they enjoy?

Most of the time we stay close by, fishing in a local community pond. When we do actually catch something, I rely on the mercy of nearby fishermen who help us scoop up and unhook our kill. I think they take pity on the helpless housewife who is trying to support her sons.

I love to support them and do things that they enjoy, but don’t get me wrong. I am not always the perfectly patient fisherman’s mother.

Sometimes I am stressed out of my mind trying to keep my little one from wading in as well as sending every fish within a 50-foot radius scrambling as he chucks giant pebbles into the pond from the shore. It’s hard to watch him from the corner of my eye while trying to help my oldest cast without hooking any live objects on its way into the water.
There have been some memorable trips this summer.

Like the time we brought a box of Legos along for my 3-year-old to play with on the shore while my oldest cast out his line. A couple of the Lego instruction sheets caught air as the wind blew by and they ended up floating several yards away in the pond. There was no way I was wading through the fish-infested murky water to save a couple of Lego design sheets.

But my boys were devastated so I tried my best. I was able to scoop a couple of the sheets up with our fish net, but one page drifted to the pond’s center island and is probably still sitting there, waiting for the seagulls to build something amazing.

Then there’s the time we invited the neighbors to go to the trout farm in North Ogden. I don’t know what possessed me to think I was brave enough to go there by myself, without my husband. Not only did I think it was a good idea, I thought it was a good idea to take three neighbors who had never been fishing along.

I had to unhook each fish – and after the first one was hooked in the eye, I nearly gave up. But we did it. Luckily a couple of the fighters actually flung off the hook on their own. Then all we had to do was grab their slippery, slimy bodies with our bare hands and chuck them back into our water bucket. It was an adventure. We caught 11 fish between the two families that day and the kids had a blast. I was splashed with fish pooh and blood, but I wouldn’t trade that day for anything.

And I don’t think any of us will forget the day the Department of Natural Resources planted 1,000 albino rainbow trout on the bank next to where we were fishing. We all stood mesmerized as the fish flew from the back of the truck down into the pond.

My boys still talk about those albinos.
Last week was another highlight. I made my husband and boys go with me to the Utah State Fair. I love the fair, having worked there during a public relations internship in college. I thought I knew everything there was to see and do at the fair. But I didn’t know there was a fishing pond south of the DNR building.

You should have seen my oldest son run around in circles when the DNR representative told him he got to catch and release a catfish. He has dreamed of catching a catfish for nearly his whole life.

I never knew that I myself would be so excited to see an ugly slimy, slippery fish with facial whiskers. And although we didn’t get to take the nasty-looking guy home (my boys don’t like eating the fish we catch anyway) it was awesome.

We’ve had a lot of awesome moments fishing this year and we have a lot of stories to tell. We aren’t pro fishermen by any means, many times we go and we don’t catch anything, (I wish we could find more of those planted albinos,) but fishing has become something we all love.

Yes I said “we.” I can honestly say that I love it too. Not because I love catching the “big one” but because I love being with my boys and doing something they love.

I hope we get to go on many more fishing trips, and that one day my boys get old enough to unhook their own fish.