The First Fish of 2008!

I promised Noah that he and I would go fishing at the pond behind our house today since it was such a nice day. We started our trip by going to Westend Outdoors and getting Noah his very own cricket cage and a 1/2 tube of anxious little crickets. All was well and we were enjoying our manly father/son outing until Noah lost his footing climbing into his seat in daddy's truck and you guessed it... Noah fell... in the truck... onto the cricket cage... and more than a few of our new little prisoner friends escaped into every possible nook and cranny of the cab. Needless to say after reassuring Noah that he would be alright and the scrape on his knee would actually heal; I spent the next several minutes rounding up as many as I could find of the happy-to-be-free bait. I got a good number back into the cage, but I'm sure a few of the little critters that were more experienced escape artists and I will cross paths again some day soon.

After arriving back home we walked down to the pond and fished the end nearest our house for a few minutes without even so much as a nibble. We decided to walk to the opposite end of the pond to the dock fondly referred to by Noah as "the bridge" and try our luck. Not long after arriving daddy helped Noah cast his trusty Finding Nemo rod and reel toward a familiar honey hole and then it was on! Us against the fish. Man against beast. And, as you can tell by the pictures, Noah won. After catching his four bluegills in about 10 minutes the wind picked up and Noah began to get a little chilly realizing daddy may have been on to something when he tried to get him to wear something more outside than camo shorts, crocs and his VBS t-shirt . So, we called it a day and walked back up to the house. Pretty productive for about 30 minutes worth of effort. Noah 4, the fish 0, and daddy walks away with the priceless memory of a winter fishing outing with his little buddy.