Fishing Derby

We were lucky enough to get signed up for a Fishing Derby put on by the Molalla Kiwanis where they take only about 45 kids to a private pond to fish. So this morning, at a few minutes before 7am, Papa, Zach, Tyler, and I headed to Safeway for donuts and chocolate milk, and then to Molalla City Hall to load on this bus and head to the lake. The boys were very anxious to go fishing. I was very anxious about touching not only a worm, but also a fish if we caught once. This is of course why I asked my Dad to go.

This is the beautiful lake where we fished. We had perfect weather. High 60's, mostly cloudy, hardly any wind.


Luckily Grandpa did all the 'work' on the fishing poles. I just made sure the poles stayed in the water. I don't do worms or fish.

Notice Grandpa has his chair to sit in.

Notice the canopies set up behind...there they had a weigh/measure station. Anytime someone got a fish, they ran it up there where it was 'tagged and bagged' and put on ice. The boys loved watching each fish as it came up.

And Grandpa even found a nice rock where he took a snooze or two during the day!

I'm not a good fisherwoman. My dad is not a good fisherman. We caught nothing. Keep in mind, this is a stocked pond. There's really no excuse for us, other than that the fish just don't like us. So a kind man took pity on my children and helped them catch a fish. Zach was first. Funny thing was that once it was caught, neither child would touch it. Oops - they got that from me saying 'gross' all the time!

Here's the fish! It was 16 inches long and 2 lbs. 7 oz.

See how they wouldn't touch it? This poor little boy ended up doing all the work.

This is them taking their fish to the tent to get weighed and measured. They were so excited!

Tyler 'caught' one too with the nice man's help, but it was such a huge fish that I had to reel it in and I guess there is an artform to reeling and I did it wrong (too fast?) and I lost the fish at the very end. Seriously...there is a right and wrong way to spin that little knob that brings in the line? Who knew! But Tyler was still excited so it worked out ok.

The Kiwanis provided a free lunch and each child got a prize. The boys both picked out a new fishing pole!