Today me, Holly and Eleanor went fishing in the boating lake of the Peter Pan Park. On the way Holly and Eleanor amused themselves with their fishing rods brandishing them around Scampy, saying 'Look I've caught a Scampi' or round a rock 'I've caught a rock fish'.We got there, and there were quite a lot of other people there too, fishing. A row was narrowly averted when Eleanor had two fish and Holly had none, but soon things were back on track as the number of fishes in the ice cream tubs equalised. I took four ice cream tubs, I've got quite a number of them at home which I keep for any eventuality, and we needed them today as all our little buckets had been lost or broken.
As usually happens when we go fishing we were soon surrounded by a crowd of small boys, who haven't got any fishing rods themselves and like to muscle in on the action. I liked it when someone said 'I've got a fish' and everyone rushed over to have a look, even if it was the umpteenth fish caught. Soon the little would-be hunters had appropriated one of our fishing rods and were advising the girls on handling the fish 'Just, do it like this, it's not going to bite you.' Soon the emphasis was on size with 'Look I've got a massive one' 'There's a massive one over here' and it all got very competitive. Holly asked for her fishing rod back and I gave the boys two of my ice cream tubs instead. My main function was to follow the girls on their progress round the pond with the fish in the tubs to try and minimise the time the fish spent suspended in the nets.
The girls spent a lot of time naming their fishes, Splishy and Spashy being Eleanor's, and wrote the names on their tubs, with the added information that Eleanor's were best friends with Holly's. I have let them bring two home each, but they will be put back tomorrow. It took quite some time carrying them home and I suggested we put the tubs in some carrier bags which I had with me, but they must have thought of goldfish in plastic bags at the fair and were alarmed as they thought the bags might have some holes in, but I explained that what I meant was put the tubs in the carrier bags. After some discussion about whether all the water would slosh out and a few practices and putting the tubs squarely in the middle of the carrier bags so that they were properly balanced we managed to get them home safely.
Scamp spent a lot of time watching, trying to work out what was going on. He seemed to think that the water was being put in the tubs for his benefit (as sometimes I use the tubs for this purpose) and tried to drink out of them. Walking home he thought that the rods were giant sticks and was barking at me to throw them.
The girls have just come in and they have bought some fish food from the petshop for their fishes.
5 comments:
This post made me laugh. What a fun day at the park you had! I remember taking my kids fishing and how serious they were about it. Scamp is a winner, isn't he? I hope the fish survive to make it back to the lake.
I keep checking on them!
It sounds like it was a lovely day, even with the know-it-all boys hanging around. Any idea what kind of fish y'all were catching? I don't know why I asked that. I don't know a herring from a hairpin.
Minnows! Don't know whether you have them in Texas.
I bet you don't have any fish so small and weedy as minnows in Texas. Everything (I've got this from the telly)seems to be on a much bigger scale over there, cars, houses everything. I bet you have pond fish on a bigger scale, more exotic and scarier. A bit like that caterpillar you took a picture of a while back. It's not like the weedy cabbage white caterpillars we have over here!
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