Gone Fishing

You might be thinking, that given the lack of recent activity on this blog, that I have given it up following my return home from China. Hopefully that is not the case - call it a short vacation. I have been thinking that blog posts will be much less interesting now - less random travel adventures, and more random commentary. Hopefully it isn't that boring for people - I will tend to focus on news and events in Greater China because that is what I am interested in and studying.

That said, this blog post has nothing to do with China. Instead, as you can probably tell from the title, it has to do with fishing. In recent months, I have been attempting to reclaim a small portion of the rich fishing heritage I have inherited from my grandpa Dio. I will be honest - I haven't had much experience fishing - I went a couple times as a scout growing up. I think I caught a pike in the small Magrath fishing pond in Southern Alberta - but I wouldn't eat it, because it creeped me out. I went sea fishing (from the shore, of course - as all missionaries know "no private boats or airplanes") while an LDS missionary in Melbourne, Australia with the great man Charlie T. - I caught a fish there too, but I can't remember what it was called. And I got to go fishing once this summer in China in Wan'an, and caught some sort of fish there too. But that's pretty much it - all of these times have been other people taking me out, so I had never really had a chance to try fishing on my own - a bit different when you are calling the shots.

So, I had felt for awhile that I could probably enjoy fishing. My birthday present from Melanie this year was a canoe, and a cheap fishing pole and basic tackle. We managed to go out once before I left to China, but it was mostly to paddle the canoe around, and we didn't catch anything. We went again on July 7, and this time, I was ready - I wanted to catch something.

I was supposedly fishing for bass - we went to the Fall's Lake Reservoir just north of town. I even bought a lure that looked like a small fish - the package said "bass love 'em" so I figured I couldn't go wrong. We got there at around 6am, because I think that bass tend to bite in the morning (no personal experience to back this up - I just think it might be true). Anyways, after fishing for a couple hours, we hadn't caught anything, so I changed the bait to some sort of spinner thing, and a couple casts later, I got a bite, and reeled it in!

As you can see, this is my first fish in North Carolina - a small, ugly catfish! After struggling with the hook for awhile (and probably maiming the poor fish in the process), I released it back into the water - after all, it wasn't that big, and catfish seems to be a garbage fish to me (even though it is a common Southern dish). After that, we didn't catch any bass, and I still have no clue what I am doing, but I know that if the world comes to an end, and I need to fish to survive, I can at least catch catfish.