Fishing at River Bend

Alex, Ellie and I went out to River Bend Park this morning for a little fishing. We had a lot of fun eating our very healthy McDonald's breakfasts, throwing sand at each other, throwing rocks at everything, throwing up (Ellie got a little car sick), and, intermittently, fishing. Alex landed this monster bluegill which measured out at just over six inches and weighed a few ounces. But, as anyone who takes kids fishing knows, the size of the fish is almost never proportional to the excitement of catching it (that is to say Alex had an absolute blast hauling in this pip-squeak).

Ellie hooked one - about the same size as Alex's - that got away just at the water's edge. As it turned out, it may have been a good thing she didn't land it, because as I was putting Alex's fish on the stringer Ellie started chastising me seriously. With her most angry-hurt face she yelled at me, "Daddy! Leave him alone! He needs to go back to his family." I tried to explain that fish don't really have families, but with the unshakable confidence of a toddler, she was not dissuaded and snapped back, "Yes, he does have a family. He needs them to take care of him and make his breakfast." (big pout!).

Alex had a slightly different, but no less familial set of plans for this fish. Alex excitedly suggested that if we could get the fish home alive he could be "Larryboy's dad." Larryboy, for those of you who don't know, is Alex's pet goldfish who lives in a 2 gallon aquarium. Alex's catch was small, but probably not too small to eat Larryboy whole, so that idea was a non-starter.