Mac's First Fish

A few weekends ago, Ryan and I decided it was finally time to take Mac fishing.  I know what you're all thinking...how could we (or at least Ryan) have waited TWO FULL YEARS before we took that child fishing?  Poor deprived kid.  Let me rephrase that, he's been fishing (or around Ryan while he's fishing) basically since birth, but he's never been interested (or patient) enough to try it himself.  He's always been too little to care or too busy with other things to pay any attention to the fishing.  Even a couple months ago while we were in Florida and Ryan fished from the beach, Mac showed no interest.  

But that didn't stop us.  Even though he has the patience of a gnat (I bet Ryan that morning that he wouldn't last more than 20 minutes), we figured it was time to give it a shot and if he still showed no interest, we'd try again in a couple months.  Ryan was much more confident than I was that Mac could handle it.  I brought a bag full of snacks and toys...just in case.  The day before we went, Ryan headed out to Bass Pro and bought Mac his first little blue fishing pole and let him "practice" casting around the house.  Talk about a game changer.  From the moment Ryan put the pole in his hands, Mac was a "fisherman."  Apparently this disease is genetic.

Ryan and Mac spent an hour the night before digging worms out of the flower bed in our front yard for bait.  As you know, Mac is a worm digging machine.  This kid is beyond obsessed with worms, so the fact that fishing had to do with worms scored major bonus points in his eye.  Mac was incredibly proud of his worms and talked about them being in a cup in the fridge all evening.  We checked on them no fewer than 18 times that night to make sure they were still there.  Thankfully they were.  I guess I better get used to having a fridge full of live worms.

Saturday morning, we went over to Ryan's aunt's house (about 20 minutes from our house).  She has this great little neighborhood pond in the back yard that's perfect for fishing with kids.  It's small, surrounded by trails and benches and stocked full of fish.  It was hot, but we had shade, water, snacks, chairs and great company.  A perfect fishing hole.

Ryan showed Mac how to bait his hook and cast the rod.  Initially, Mac was more interested in the birds and turtles to really care about the fishing part.  But it only took a few minutes before everything changed. 

FISH ON!  

Mac was fascinated!  I'm not sure if he realized that he was really going to catch a real live fish or not, but he was absolutely blown away!  It was the cutest thing ever to watch Ryan pull the fish out of the pond and Mac react in absolute shock.  Once he realized that he caught a fish and that was a good thing, he got so incredibly excited and proud of himself!  

Although, I think it's a toss up as to who was more excited and proud, the little fisherman or the daddy.

It took him a few minutes to warm up to the idea of touching the fish, but he was pretty fearless about it.  He wanted to pet it and tell it good-bye before throwing it back.  

And that's all it took.  

He was addicted.  

He picked out the next worm to rig up and couldn't wait to get back at it.

A few more minutes, another fish on! 

I think it's safe to say that Mac got more than those killer brown eyes from his daddy.  

Pardon the pun, but he was hooked!

All in all, he caught six fish in about an hour.  

He cast by himself, reeled by himself and picked out his own worms.  

He loved touching the fish!

In between fish he gave hugs to the dog, collected rocks/sticks and patiently waited for daddy to put another worm on the hook.  I can't even tell you how impressed we all were with how well he did.  I lost my bet that he'd only last 20 minutes.  That's one time I was happy to be proven wrong.

Thank you Ed and Laura for hosting us and spending the morning with us.  We had the absolute best time and will definitely be back for more.  Very soon!