Xavier's First Fish
Hello to you all.
When school let out for the summer, I had Xavier write in his journal three goals he wanted to accomplish before school started up again.
He listed
- Catch a fish
- Eat six McDonald's hamburgers
- Have twelve play dates
Today, I am proud to announce Xavier is able to check off a goal he has had since last summer: catch a fish.
We have had Xavier fishing local lakes and creeks, but to no avail.
Today, we packed snacks and headed up to a little spot west of Bailey: The Rainbow Roundup Trout Ranch.
It's a stocked pond. Small entrance fee, they supply everything you need: buckets, nets, worms, even fishing poles. They even offer the service of cleaning the fish you catch. Xavier used his own pole and bait, but we did borrow one of their buckets.
We arrived around 11:30 and found an spot in the shade under a tree and set up.
Xavier's first choice of bait was salmon eggs, but they did not do the trick. Everyone around us was pulling in trout left and right, but Xavier did not get even a nibble.
After ten or fifteen minutes of this, I started asking some of the other families what they were baiting with. The answer: the nightcrawlers sold by the ranch. So, I headed over to get some.
Half way to the shack and I heard splashing and Xavier screaming with glee. I looked back across the pond where he had pulled a fish to shore and Rebecca was trying to net it.
I sprinted back, arriving just in time to watch the fish escape back into the pond. The hook we used, we think, was too small.
So we baited up another hook with a couple of salmon eggs and tried again. Thirty or forty minutes and nothing. Fish jumping all around his casts. Kids to the left and to the right were reeling fish in about one every four minutes.
Xavier grew despondent, even to the point of giving up. However, Rebecca and I wouldn't have it. This was his day to land a fish.
We tried the worms. No fish went for them. Finally, we moved to a new location.
We baited up with more eggs and adjusted the bobber to let the eggs go deeper into the water. At last, we found the bait, the rigging and the location that might work!
The first fish to take the bait got away with it. Xavier learned a few lessons in how to handle the pole with a fish hooked at the other end.
The second fish to hit on the line also got away with three eggs.
By this time, Xavier was both excited and frustrated. We baited again and cast to the location we had been watching a fish feed.
That cast was the one! A fish grabbed hold of the bait and set the hook deep in its "cheek". Xavier fought the fish and pulled it to shore. I had the net and with some difficulty netted it and got it away from the water. There were several moments when it looked like the fish would get away.
Xavier's fish: a 16 inch rainbow trout.
We paid to have it cleaned and packed on ice. We headed home and Rebecca fried up Xavier's catch and he ate it for dinner. As the fish cooked, Xavier kept singing a little ditty: "Fishy, fishy in the brook, Xavier caught him on a hook. Mommy fried him in a pan. Xavier ate him like a man."
Xavier came home with one fish, the largest of today's catch. Rebecca landed three. She experimented with different lures, having most of her success with a trolling lure.
