Fatherhood and fishing thoughts

I haven't blogged in a while but I have two updates:

Fatherhood thoughts: My beloved and I took a trip back down memory lane this past weekend with our 3 girls. We went back to the city on Lake Winnebago where our older 2 girls were born just about 6 years ago. We shared meals with old friends, played with some friend's and their kids in a swimming pool with a nifty water slide. We had a chance to drive past the places we'd been so many times before.

It wasn't our first trip back and it won't be our last. Wisconsin isn't that far away after all. We've come back to relax and catch up a few times over the past 6 years. We came back this time so I could give a speech at a banquet for the church where I served a few years ago. Our first girls were pretty small when we left; but we've been back enough to introduce them to the church where they were baptized and the pastor/God-mother who baptized them.

The time in the Fox Valley included a short trip to the Hecrodt Nature Center and Light-House at Kimberly Park where the Fox River flows out of Lake Winnebago. The girls were complaining about the Lake Flies that hatched last week too much to catch the beauty of the area where they were born.

We're back in the prairie today. The air is warm and there's plenty of wind. My beloved said it's a record setting heat. It's a good old prairie heat wave. Its our home now and will be for a while, but still it was good to go back to see old friends and celebrate with them. It was good to know that there are good places to go east of here.

Trout Fishing: A week and a half ago was the annual Mother's Day Weekend on the Whitewater River. It was a great time and I will look forward to the weekend in the pasture next to the wildlife management area again next year. A new member joined the crew at the old fishing hole. Dave's a true fly-fisherman who even brought out a wonderful wet-fly called a Mother's Day Caddis for the weekend. All these years that I've been fishing on Mother's Day and I had no idea that there's a Caddis pattern for the weekend. I learned more from Dave in two days then I had in about 11 years playing with a fly rod.

The challenge for the trouter, taken from God's question to Job in Job 41:1 was, "Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook?" was answered by Chad, an Iowan by way of Fargo. Chad had the biggest catch ever on the Whitewater, while fishing with a mep thrown on a spinning real. He said it had gotten snagged on a tree across the stream a good hours walk up from the rest of us up at camp.

He pulled back hard and it snapped back. At first he thought it had bounced off, but obviously it didn't.

I drove Chad to Winona so that a doctor could pull the hook out rather than risk having either of the 2 chemists or the preacher in camp try to remove it. Chad caught himself with 2 of the 3 treble hooks. The doctor was quick with the lidocaine. She snipped the 3rd hook. Next she pushed one of the hooks through to cut off the barb before pushing the 2nd one through and snipping out the barb. After about 60 seconds of pushing and pulling chad had 4 little 2 mm cuts in his cut where the barbs had pierced him.