Friday’s trip wasn’t my son’s first fishing experience, but it was the first time that he actually landed a fish on his own. We’d been fishing several times before, but he’d never caught anything. A month or so ago, we were at my nephew’s birthday party when a family friend told us to try the pond adjacent to his house. He said that it was full of fish, and that we were welcome to fish there any time.
We set off for this pond Friday afternoon and arrived there around 3:30 p.m. It’s usually beat-down hot that time of day in mid-August in southwest Alabama, but not on Friday. Temperatures were mild, we were mostly in the shade and there was a little wind blowing.
Armed with an old-fashioned cane pole and a small basket of crickets, it didn’t take us long to get a bite. My son was using the cane pole, which was a tad too long for him. He did his best to hold it right, and I had to instruct him to keep his eye on the lime-green cork. When it goes underwater, you’ve got a fish, I told him again and again.
We hadn’t been there long when he got a real, legitimate bite. The cork went underwater, and he pulled the fish out of the water and onto the pier. To say that he was a little excited would be an understatement. I snapped a few pictures of him with his “monster” bream for posterity’s sake.
The fish was small, just over six inches long, but we kept him anyway. My son asked me if it was a “keeper,” and I said “yeah” because it was his first fish. After all, we needed to take it home to show mamma. I asked him where did he hear about a “keeper”? He said he’d heard about it on the cartoon, “Little Bill.” I asked him, “What is a keeper?” It’s a “big one,” he answered.
In all, he caught six or seven fish on Friday, but we threw them all back except for the first. We took his first fish home to show off and before it was all said and done, even my in-laws made the trip over to inspect his catch.
My son turned four in June, and I wonder if, years from now, he’ll even remember catching his first fish. I can barely remember catching my first fish. It was either a bream or white perch, and I was in a boat with my dad and grandfather. We were probably on the Alabama River somewhere. For some reason, I keep thinking that I was in the first grade, which would mean that I was six or seven years old.
In the end, I enjoyed scratching another item off my bucket list. How many of you can remember catching your first fish? When and where did you do it? How old were you? Who were you with? Let us know in the comments section below.
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