Maple Leaf Mommy

As I mentioned before, a little while back I took the girls camping for the first time. It was also G-Girl's first try at fishing. I worried a bit how she'd react, for one thing I was using worms as live bait. But the fact that worms were dying to get on my hook didn't phase her at all. In fact she named them. Slimon. Slimantha. Wuwu. Erp. We caught a small pumpkin fish and I let her hold it and then toss it back. She was shocked when I asked her what the fishes name was. She said, "I don't know. Did you want me to make one up or something??" Because clearly with the worms she wasn't making them up, she just knew their names.

We took  turns holding the rod and reeling it in. Mostly she watched me fish and learned about the different bits, and how I put everything together and why. She sat on the stairs leading down to the wee dock and sang me a fishing song about how beautiful the sunset was reflecting in the water. It was a great mom-daughter moment.


Later I found the perfect fishing spot and managed to catch two trout that were actually worth keeping, which was a first for me. I brought them home and then had to figure out how to clean and gut the fish. I was intimidated by what I thought would be a gory chore, but actually it wasn't bad at all. Thank goodness for YouTube, because I don't know what the heck I would have done to figure out how to prep those fish in pre-internet days.

And dang, that fish tasted good. Ridiculously enough G-Girl refused to eat it at first. She had no qualms about catching the fish, or even checking out the skeletal system after I filleted it. But when I handed her a piece to eat she said "I'm not eating that, it came from a river." Seriously kid? Eventually I convinced her to give it a try and she agreed that it was the tastiest fish ever.