SPRING BREAK FUN

Spring break is fun if you're a teacher or a student.  At my house I've got one of the former and three of the latter.  So it was a bit disheartening for all last week when the first five days or so of spring break was a monsoon of sorts.  And to top that off we had scheduled a long-overdue garage sale for Friday and Saturday when it did get nice.

We wrapped up the sale mid-afternoon Saturday and I asked my twin boys if they wanted to go to Applebees for dinner to celebrate their birthday (they turned 13) or go pond fishing.  They got the hang of eating like teenage boys early and I wondered what they might choose.

"FISHING!" was the unanimous shout. 

So we loaded up the truck with drinks, snacks, rods, reels and lawn chairs.  My daughter, home from her first college spring break, loves to fish so I knew she was game, too.  My wife even decided to join us.  She doesn't fish much but knew the evening would be an enjoyable one and she could relax in a lawn chair (she didn't really relax as she tried to catch up on grading papers and other school work).

The action started out a bit slow but the kids all had caught a few fish.  My boys suffer from "the grass is always greener just around the corner" mentality and circled the pond in no time casting spinner baits.  After catching a few fish on a nearby smaller pond my daughter and I joined the boys on the big pond. 

"I caught three right there, Dad," Cody said. 

"Then why did you leave?" I asked.

More than likely he was trying to beat his brother to the upper end where they'd caught scrappy bass nearly every cast on our last trip last summer.  Boys will be boys.

So Ashley and I stood in the same spot and probably caught 25 largemouth bass or so between us.  It wasn't long and the boys were back with us.

The evening was beautiful.  Each of my kids caught from 12-20 largemouth bass ranging in size from 8 inches up to about 4 pounds.  Three pound fish weren't uncommon.  Throw in some trophy bull bluegill and it was definitely a success.  All fish were released with hopes we'd tangle with them another day. 
 
And the boys even got to strap on the feed bag later that night.  We went to Applebees for half-price appetizers at 10 p.m.  If they KEEP eating like teenagers I might have to take out a loan!  Either that or I'll show them how to prepare a shore-lunch!  

It's all good and was a great way to celebrate the boys' birthday and some nice spring break weather!