For our family fishing is a summertime activity. You can be sure that any trip to grandparents’ homes will include packing our poles and tackle. We also bring our fishing gear on camping trips when we can easily (and inexpensively) get a temporary license to fish.
We had our first fishing expedition of 2012 this past weekend at the lake across the street from Grandma and Grandpa’s home in Virginia.
It was hot and humid, but the fish weren’t biting.
Only one of us pulled something up. Andrew reeled in a… sock. Ewwwww! (Sorry no picture I hadn’t brought my camera this weekend and my phone’s battery was limping through and missed this.)
A fishing trip is usually about more than the fish.
For us, fishing is a lesson in patience, endurance, patience, kindness, patience, and contentment.
Did you catch the recurring theme there?
It is an opportunity to teach the children about quietly waiting and observing. Lots of noise and movement will insure nothing but an empty hook.
Vince and I get an exercise in patience when we try to explain for the fifty-ninth time that they need to leave the line out and not keep reeling it in.
Not every fishing trip yields a fish.
We need to be willing to just enjoy the journey regardless of the results.
The littlest ones need help casting their lines, it means that one of us has to lay our pole down to help the younger one.
I’ll admit our trip this past weekend was a little stress-inducing. Although there was the implied relaxation of such a slow and methodical activity, the mini frustration-fires that needed to be extinguished and the non-thrill-a-minute moments that led to a trip to the swing set at the park to keep a certain 3 year old and his 5 year old sister engaged, led to a tired momma ushering 4 children into the van while Evan and Vince got a little guy-time by the lake while the rest of us went back to grandpa’s for a jump in the pool!
It’s only the beginning of the season and I know we’ll have an opportunity to apply what we learned from this trip to the next…
and maybe next time we’ll bring home dinner.
Join us next week for Nature Connections.
Thanks for joining us for the first post of the Family Connections {for Summer} series, be sure to visit Missional Mama, Our Good Life, Walking in High Cotton, and The Daisyhead to see how their families celebrate old fashioned fun. Please join in the hop by linking your post about summertime family connections or old fashioned fun! Please include the button or link-back to this site (you can grab the button code from my side-bar).
Fishing is a great activity and I can understand the littles being donw a little earlier then the others! Hope you have lots of opportunities for more fishing time!
Amy
Thankfully this lake has a nice playground for diffusing extra energy. Hopefully the next trip will also include some fish. 😉
I’ve never found fishing to be the idyllic pastime that people say it is either. It is a lesson in patience, perseverance, and every other fruit of the spirit….We’ve not taken the girls fishing, but they love going to the creek and hunting for tadpoles, minnows and crayfish.
We also do some backyard adventuring. My children are on a mission of turning over every stone to find creatures and searching the local ponds for lots of little critters. Fishing is certainly a character training session for the entire family.
I have to admit, this country girl has never been fishing. At all.
We do enjoy going down to the river {which is in our backyard!} and throwing rocks, jumping over puddles and generally splashing everywhere 🙂
My 3yo could not understand why we kept asking him to NOT throw stones into the lake. 😉 You all should give fishing a try some time. It is pretty fun.
going fishing with family is very fun, isn’t it?