Fishing With Perry

I doubt it will surprise anyone reading this, but I am not an accomplished fisherman. I'm sure I can count all the fish I've caught in my life on two hands. So many years ago when Perry first asked me to take him fishing we didn't have much luck. In fact after about 5 tries I was starting to wonder if I would ever get him to catch a fish. And at scout camp he finished every part of his fishing merit badge except catching the fish. So I decided it was time to take him to a commercial fishing pond. (You know the ones that are so stocked they guarantee fish.) This little pond was just teaming with Catfish and it wasn't more than 15 minutes before he had one hooked and in the net.


Here you can see him showing off his catch. Looks pretty good doesn't it.

Here he is cleaning the fish. I only knew how to clean trout which is very different than filleting catfish, but the man who ran the pond was very gracious and helped Perry do this part too.

Finally we brought it home to cook it up. I'd never had catfish (the whiskers on the live fish just freaked me out), but I looked up a simple fried catfish recipe and it was fairly easy to fry up. In spite of both of us feeling a bit squeamish at first, it was delicious and made a fine meal for the day the girls were out on their mother daughter camp out. So I'd say the trip was successful.

(We do actually need to catch and release a fish still, but I think I've learned enough about how to catch bluefin at El Dorado park that we should be successful at that.)