Fishing with Paka

While we were in Indiana, Anna's Dad and I took Hope on her first fishing trip. She wasn't originally supposed to go with us. Anna's Dad and I got up fairly early, hooked up the boat, and headed for the local reservoir. We made it about two miles before we blew a tire on the trailer. We limped back to the house. Undaunted, we pulled the wheels off the trailer, and ran them out to a tire shop while we grabbed some breakfast. Hope came with us. At the restaurant, the cook made her a special Mickey Mouse pancake.

Over breakfast, Hope kept asking if she could go fishing with us. I figured, hey, why not? It's going to be afternoon by the time we make it out and we probably won't catch anything anyway. So, on the way home, we stopped by Meijer and bought her a Barbie fishing pole and life jacket. Hope could now go fishing in style!

A few things came up, and we didn't end up going fishing until about 5:30 in the afternoon. Hope was really excited and asked all sorts of questions as we launched the boat and drove out to the bay where we would be fishing. On the way, I took this picture:



It wasn't too long until she caught her first fish, which turned out to be the biggest catch of the day:



Here's my "lunker":



Here's Paka's fish. Don't be fooled. That's not his minnow. It's his big catch.



Hope did really well on our little fishing trip. At about 8:45 PM, she was starting to look a little tired. I asked her if she was sleepy. "Yes," she replied, "Can I take a little nap here in the boat?"

I explained to her that we didn't sleep in the boat and we'd just leave when she was tired. She thought for a minute and said, "Maybe I could just catch another big one and then we could go."

She's hooked and has been talking about going fishing again ever since.