My family and I went out to a friends house for a social gathering this last saturday. They have a lake and a paddle boat there so we fished and had fun. We fished with baked beans as our bait (!!!) and were catching fish as fast as we could put the hook in the water – no kidding. We started out with hamburger and ham but the fish would nibble it off without getting the hook, although I did catch one with ham. I decided to try beans because they were smaller and would increase the chance of taking the hook… it worked. I tried it once and nabbed a little blue gill. Then I tossed the line out for Eli and handed him the pole. Within 30 seconds he was reeling in a fish. I tried it a third time and didn’t even have time to hand him the pole before the bobber went under. It’s fun to catch fish, even if they’re little.

We decided to try the paddle boat and fish from the middle. That didn’t work and it started to lightening off in the distance so came in. When we got to shore, I tossed the rope out and to a friend and then hopped out to help pull the boat up on the ground to help pull it in.

I gave the rope a tug and some slack in the rope gave suddenly and caused Eli to fall (actually flip) over the back end. He fortunately made it to the edge of the boat and I was able to pull him in. Lyss was horrified.

Eli was scared but OK. I made a bad choice though, because I let him run around barefoot and I guess there are some “locus (?)” trees with big thorns. Eli ended up getting a nasty cut on his foot and couldn’t walk half of the next day. He had fun though. The kids thought he was a hero because he was the only one who got to go swimming.
Thank you God, this could have been a lot worse than a sore foot!