soliciting water dwelling vertebrate animals

MKH and I bought 24 hour licenses, a Michigan outdoor card, 24 Canadian Nightcrawlers and took a trip down memory lane.

MKH had been telling me that she liked to fish, (solicit water dwelling vertibrate animals) and she didn't mind putting the worm on the hook or any other part of the fishing experience but she didn't touch fish. I would have to be responsible for taking the fish off the hook. OK, no problem.

However, when we got to the fishing hole, which was right off the dock of our lake side vacation spot, and it came time to actually putting a worm on the hook, it was a totally different story. She did try...briefly, then she groaned, and moaned and squealed and screamed and shuddered and ran in place shaking her hands, and informed me that she had decided she didn't do worms either. I enjoyed her performance. She did catch the biggest fish, a 12 inch large mouth bass (which, of course, had swallowed the hook).

She told me how her grandfather had loved to fish. He didn't eat the fish but he loved to catch them and then let them go. That was before the phrase "catch and release" had been invented.

I remembered fishing with my dad and friends down through the years. We always ate what we caught. My dad would even save the little fishes and take them home and we would immediately clean them, my mom would cook them and we would eat them for supper.

MKH told me a story about how she screamed when a fish touched her leg when she was swimming. That's pretty much the whole story. I laughed.

I remembered one of my favorite pictures of JDH and TRH and a whole mess of little fish they had caught and how proud they were. I'll try to enclose the picture.

I remembered once when AMH caught a fish and brought it up onto a high deck above the water where we were visiting with friends. We told him to throw it back into the water. Unfortunately we didn't define the word "throw" very well. He threw the fish as hard as he could from that spot and it smacked the water like a fat kid doing a belly flop. I can still see it floating there on the water.

I had COMPLETELY forgotten how slimy and smelly, and muddy your hands get when you fish. It's a disgusting combination of worm guts and fish slime (fish slime actually protects them from parasites until you rub it off with your hands). It disturbs me that you can't multitask when you fish. For example, you wouldn't dare touch the book you're reading, or eat a sandwich, chips or use a laptop computer or any thing else. About the only thing you can do while you fish is talk, nap, and drink your favorite beverage out of a container that has been opened by a bottle opener or clean hands.

To clean your hands after fishing douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. Just kidding about the fire part. A better plan is to douse them with lemon juice. This takes away the worm guts/fish slime smell after two days and 15 showers.

I have a lot more to say about fishing but really you should quit screen sucking and get outside and solicit some water dwelling vertebrate animals.