I know I have mentioned it before, but we have a very lovely pond that is behind our house. Within days of moving in, Li'l Robby couldn't wait to use his fishing gear and test out his skills. On the two fishing trips that he took in Arizona he never caught anything. Our neighbor behind us is also from Arizona and is really nice. He showed Robby how best to bait his hook and gave him some pointers on casting, and off Robby went.
The first day Robby went out to fish, Jenna and I followed him to watch. Cast after cast, his hook came up empty or dragging seaweed (I'm not sure if that really is what it is, but that's what the stuff looks like.) I sat there watching him and thinking, poor boy, he's probably going to spend most of an afternoon out there and not catch anything... and then to my surprise his rod jiggled and line became tight. He pulled and reeled it in carefully. He had caught himself a largemouth bass!
So we both stood there shocked and I said, "Okay, take it off the hook and throw it back now!"
He looked at me and said, "But, I don't want to touch it! Will you?!"
"It was your idea, Robby! You caught it, you touch it!"
"Please Mom, I promise I will do the next one!"
I looked in disgust at this fish hanging by a hook stuck through its cheek. I must say that part of me felt bad for this fish to be so unfortunate as to be caught by a fishing hook. I realized that for every moment I argued with Robby about who was going to unhook the fish, this fish was probably in agony.
The fish hung calmly from the line as I reached over to grab it, almost as if the fish was resigned to whatever fate it received. I fully expected it to start wriggling and flopping around when I took hold of it, but to my relief it remained still. It only started flopping when I tossed it back in the water.
Robby was so proud that he caught a fish, and I was happy, too, but quickly retreated to the house to wash my hands and also to escape from having to save another fish from the line.
The next fish Robby caught that day he managed to get a neighbor who was nearby to unhook and toss back. He did say that he tried to get the hook out, but it was stuck in there pretty good. Yuck! I'm glad I'm not a fish!
To his credit, he did catch 3 more fish over that day and the next and he did unhook the last three by himself.
Did I get a picture of the fish? No, I didn't have my camera with me because I didn't really believe he was actually going to catch something. Of course it makes the story that much better because no one will ever know how big that fish really was! I would say it was about 10 - 12 inches, but Robby claimed it was bigger. He said that one of the fish he caught the next day was probably 16 inches. Pretty good for a novice fisherman if you ask me.
The pictures I took were taken after he caught the first fish. I did go back out for a little in hopes of capturing a picture of him with a fish, but it didn't work out.
Instead I got pictures of Jenna picking weeds to throw in the pond. 
And a few pics of our little fisherman.
She didn't want to look at the camera.
One other thing that Robby really likes about the pond is looking for the bullfrogs like the one above.
The other thing I really like outside is watching the Canadian geese fly over. They fly so low that you can hear their wings flapping. Very cool!And lastly, for your viewing pleasure... Baby O!
Olivia turned 7 months old a few days ago.
My baby is growing too fast!
