After working in the walnut grove, the forest garden and the hog-food forest doin all that was time critical, I told the kids, "To heck with all this farmin! I ain't been fishin all year. Let's go!"
No arguments were given so we started the mad dash to find all the gear that hasn't been used since last year.
But allow me to digress here a moment: I've mentioned earlier about my desire to raise my kids hard and fishin trips are one of the means to that end. Usually, when we go fishing, there are no ponds, no boats, no barbie fishing poles . . . a big negatory on all drug store paraphernalia. We use cane poles. We dip up our crawdads or take a tater fork to the creek and dig up red worms from a sand bar. We go in a swamp. We drive a mile then walk a mile to get to where we are going. We travel light. No snacks. No water (the creek has plenty of water in it). No stringers (we make our own from green, forked sticks). If the time on water requires a meal, its biscuits my daughters make and sausage that my son cooks. The trek there isn't so bad. The Odyssey back is long and all up a hill known locally as Tiger Hill 'cause it's a beast. I make it a point to go fishing a few times in August and September (aka August II).
Our gear consists of cane poles, bait buckets, knives, hooks, lead, line, skeeter dope and needle nosed pliers (when I was a kid we didn't even take pliers along opting instead to use our teeth to pinch the lead onto the line but alas I'm a wee bit softer than my own father.)
We fish hard. Competition is fierce. Cooperation is mandatory. Snakes are frequent. Fun is constant.
The lump in my throat . . . barely manageable.
I love looking up the creek and seeing my daughters sitting flat down in slick, clay mud deftly coaxing a crawdad on a hook; watching my sons walk foot-logs to get out closer to a spot they just couldn't quite reach from the bank; watching them all wade out into water muddy and murky from heavy spring rains to get a closer look at a mocassin sunning itself on a log; watching my youngest daughter snatch the puppy up from he jaws of certain death as it faced off with a black runner; the knowledge of the natural world possessed by her older, more experienced siblings as they informed her, "Aw, that ain't nuthin but a black runner! They ain't poisonous. Come on, let's see if we can catch it!"
I love it when they go fishin with other kids and realize that they really are different.
Having said all that, today we caught only half enough for a meal so we left our fishing poles in place which is a way to force us to return to finish catching enough to eat.
And the Collins Kids are a wee bit harder - one step closer to the Spartan ideal.