Last Tale from Colorado: La Nina's First Fish

I grew up fishing with my dad and my brother. I was taught fairly young how to bait my own hook and rig a line. My past catches include trout, salmon and a number of blue gills and croppies. So, while I choose not to fish these days, it isn't because I don't know how, it is because fish are slimy and disgusting. Given that I grew up fishing, I was all for introducing the girls to fishing this year at the ranch.

One afternoon in Colorado, we loaded up the crew to go fishing in a small fishing hole in town. The pond was promising: Dad and Grandpa checked it out in the morning and swore they saw a fish jump. This pond was designed for kids. In fact, the only people who were supposed to fish in it were youngsters, aged 2-14. Given that Dad and Grandpa were there, I assumed my job would be keeping Maggie out of the pond.

La Nina was excited about the big outing. We still aren't sure how she learned about fishing but she knew the basics: You put a line in the water, a fish gets on it, then you bring it in. Simple. So there we were on the side of the pond with two kiddie rods and Grandpa's fly rod, just in case. We rigged the lines, baited the hooks and casted the rods and began to wait for the bobbers to sink. Of course, nothing happened. But the girls loved watching the bobbers while we reeled in the lines to recast, so those lines were in and out of the water frequently.

After about 10 minutes, La Nina was bored. She almost fell in a couple of times, and Grandpa handed me one of the kiddie rods so he could take the fly rod and test another part of the fishing hole. I had Maggie on one hip and the rod in my free hand. I was casting the line, keeping Maggie out of the water and watching the bobber. I was a goddess of fishing prowess and multitasking. After making a couple of very decent casts--frankly I was shocked that I remembered how--I messed up a cast, the line wrapped around the tip of the pole and the bobber landed about 5 feet in front of me. Maggie was clambering to get out of my arms. I set down Maggie in the dirt next to me, and turned my attention to my line, when a fish hit the bait.

The Dad was standing 15 feet away from me and I calmly advised him that he should take Maggie and La Nina should come help me land a fish, because I had one on the line.

Dad responded condescendingly: "You don't have a fish. You don't know the difference between a weed and a fish."

However, I DO know the difference between a weed and a fish. Indignant, I advised him of this fact in a way suitable for children to hear, though in my mind I threw a couple of expletives into the sentence.

Much to my surprise, he persisted and said in an arrogant tone, "Gimme a break. Your line is a mess. You don't have a fish."

At this point, I could see the ever loving fish in the water in front of me and again I provided him with a G rated explanation of the situation concluding that La Nina needed to hurry and he needed to take Maggie before she jumped in the water to pet the friggin 4 inch fish I was about to land!

Finally, after Grandma intervened on my behalf (she saw the fish too). Grandma took Maggie, La Nina joined me and she landed her first fish. Hooray for La Nina!

Dad was shocked. I, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dumb fish, so he stepped in, took it off the hook and showed it to La Nina, let she and Maggie touch it, before they released it.

As fish go, La Nina's first fish was on the small side. It fit in the palm of Dad's hand. The nightcrawler was bigger than it. I had hooked the fish's lip as it tried to swallow the worm twice its size. We decided the fish was a croppy, but it could have been a baby bass.

In the meantime, poor Grandpa missed all the excitement. He was off flying fishing for the trout they had spotted earlier. After he recovered from the shock that I had had success, he brought the fly rod over to blue gill heaven and landed two more guppies, I mean croppies. But the girls were done: They were throwing rocks into the pond and asking for ice cream.

Right before we left, La Nina wanted to release the 3rd and final fish of the day, so Grandpa handed the little fish to her. She was carrying it back to the water and it moved in her hands. She squealed and dropped the poor fish in the dirt, refusing to touch it again. Dad rescued it and released it before any harm was done. La Nina may not have a long future in fishing, but that's ok. She can sit by the pond and read with me next year while Dad and Grandpa help Maggie land her first fish.