Leveled Up

Sebastian is gone for a few weeks visiting his Dad and extended family in Washington. Before he left we took one more fishing trip to Griffey. This time we rented a canoe.

Once we were under the bridge and over on the shady side he quickly picked up a bluegill.

Then he got distracted. He tried to catch water bugs, and spied bluegill finning by just under the surface. He grabbed handfuls of weeds to see what was inside them. He tried to catch damselflies out of the air.

While he was playing in the lake I baited up and cast out for him. I called him whenever the bobber went down and he took over the rod. We missed a couple of fish doing that. Then I made a cast and the bobber plunged as soon as it hit the water, so I set the hook. I saw a flash of silver and knew we had something special. I handed the rod to Sebastian and he started to crank. His eyes lit up when he felt the heft on the end of the line.

He shlepped the fish into the canoe.

His very first bass! Nice job, Sebastian! I'd say you just leveled up.

I paddled on down the shoreline. A breeze sprang up and it was hard to fish and keep the canoe where I wanted it to be. So Sebastian got distracted again. He began to practice pinching off pieces of nightcrawler. He was good at it. I always had a nice section ready when I wanted it.

Then we saw a fat water snake and chased it in the canoe. Sebastian grabbed some worm pieces and threw them in the water for the snake. I thought I saw a big turtle head poking out of the water, but when I paddled nearer it turned out to be a stick. Sebastian threw in some more worms for the real turtles, wherever they might be.

When he started throwing them in for the fish I figured we were going to run out of worms pretty quick. It was about time to head in, so I asked him if he wanted to fish a little longer or call it a day. He was ready to head for home. We decided to give all the worms to the fish, and dumped them in the lake in one grand gesture.

As I paddled in, Sebastian got distracted again, gazing into the wonderful, mysterious depths of that other world beneath the surface.

Hurry home, Sebastian. We'll go back and explore that world some more.