All we are going to catch today is...

Seaweed.

There are a lot of things I admire about my son, Andrew, but one of the most endearing attitudes he possesses is "never say die." For about a month he has wanted to buy a fishing pole. We have a lake right by our house and apparently there are fish in there. There's a wonderful dock for him to fish off of, and it's all within about 5 minutes walking distance.

Well, Andrew, being the venture capitalist that he is - found a way, not sure exactly how, to secure a $5 kid fishing pole from the Neighbor's garage sale early this morning. So, after untangling the line, gettting fed up untangling the line and finally cutting the line with the scissors, and reassembling the hook, bobber, and sinker - we were off. Andrew, Christian and I were off to the pier with our kiddie fishing poles. Christian has a hand-me-down Scooby Doo fishing pole that Andrew discarded a year ago - after getting the line mercilessly entangled.



And to make a long story short - we arrived at the dock (without any bait mind you or a fishing license) and as soon as Andrew attempts to cast his line into the water - SNAP! Something caught on something which got knotted up with something else and before you know off into the water flies the bobber, hook, and sinker. Bummer. The line snapped as did all of Andrew's hopes for a great fishing experience. But never to be dragged to far down in the mire of life's difficulties, Andrew bounced back.

He hoped and prayed and waited for his bobber to drift to the dock, but to no avail it was stuck in the seaweed. (It's the little red ball in the middle of the pic)


And then when that hoping and praying got old he decided to take the issue into his own hand.


He found some bait that he could tie onto the end of his line - a dead little fish that had bellied up next to the dock. (see below - that little thing Andrew is fiddling around with is the dead fish)


Somewhere along the line Christian too had lost his line and decided to join Andrew in looking for dead fish. He found one of his own, but was never able to be as resourceful as Andrew and hook it onto his fishing pole.

I think one of my favorite parts of the day was seeing the other parents with their kids take a look at Andrew and then doubletake when they realized he was using a dead fish as bait. I would just sort of shrug - so as to say "I don't know? This is his deal."

Was our fishing trip a success? Did we catch any fish? I guess it all depends on who you ask.