National Fishing Week

I know I shouldn't be surprised to find that there are various "fishing weeks" around the world - for example in the UK, it's the end of July, beginning of August. But when I found out that June 6-14th is "National Fishing Week" in the US, it really brought back a lot of memories. I'm not big into fishing, but I did grow up with a father and grandfather who enjoyed fishing. Even now I've got an uncle who has a pond on his property and a grandmother who has a place at the lake. Not that I go fishing now, but my dad enjoys taking his grandsons to the pond once in a while.

My son isn't actually old enough to go, but I look forward to the day when he can go with grandpa to the river and catch dinner. I remember learning how to bait the hook (and cringing when the bait was worms) and even once I accidentally hooked my thumb. I think I even managed to keep it rather quiet and was proud of myself for not making a scene and crying! My dad loves to tell about the time that we went fishing and due to shear dumb luck, I caught the bigger fish. Apparently I told him that we could tell everyone that he caught it instead! Here's a shot of me with one of my early catches. Not exactly a prize winning fish... although I did ask my dad once about one fish I caught "are we going to eat it or stuff it?" Apparently my idea of a BIG fish was a little skewed when I was little...

My mom was always worried that my little sister and I would be disgusted or upset when it came time to clean and cook the fish. Oddly enough, I remember more that we were fascinated by it. My dad would show us how to clean the fish, we would almost have a mini-anatomy lesson; he would show us if the fish was a female and if there were eggs present. We'd also check out what the fish had been eating. I remember thinking that was kind of neat, although now it just really sounds kind of gross when I think about it! Some things you lose the awe over as you grow up I guess...

It's one of the things I know my dad often talks about missing about his dad. They would go fishing together and of course, as time goes by, their opportunities to go fishing together got less and less. Now that my grandfather has been gone for at least 15 years, my dad still says he wishes he had taken the time to go fishing more in those last years with his dad. It's kind of funny in a way, from my own experience in fishing with both my dad and my grandpa, it was never a big occasion to do a lot of talking, but the time spent together was most definitely time well spent.

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National Fishing Week

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