The BIG Fishing Story!

I have fond memories of going fishing with my family when I was growing up. Dad always loves to fish. I can remember catching Perch at the Golf Coarse Lake in Newell and I can remember going to the river at my Grandparents place to catch catfish. But since I have grown and left home I can't really say I have enjoyed fishing. I definitely don't posses the patients that fishing requires. And I definitely don't like to ride in the boat! So, I pretty much go fishing to...get a tan!

Last weekend we decided that we hadn't done anything fun for awhile and the kids had been asking to take the boat out for weeks, so off we went on a fishing trip. We went to a nice water hole at the north Quarry on the companies property that Butch works for. The area is an old pit that they harvested the ballast rock that built the railway line from Darwin to Alice Springs. I am not sure how deep the area was, but it was big enough for the kids to have a boat ride and big enough for a few fish to call home. At first we only saw small baby fish along the edges, but we threw our lines in and waited impatiently. I found my newspaper and chair and the nicest spot to enhance my Territory tan. Butch and the kids gave me quite a bit of slack for not even trying to fish, so I made one attempt to cast the fishing line. Since I wasn't real sure what I was doing, I managed to severely entangle the line. The mess was so bad that I couldn't even real the line back in. I laid the pole in the nearest bush and returned to reading the paper and catching some sun. Butch was busy helping the kids with their fishing and wasn't able to detangle the line. Hayden and Yarra were only interested in throwing the line in the water and then reeling it back out, so Butch stayed more than busy with that. A few minutes passed and I noticed that the fishing pole that I managed to mess up was moving in the bushes. I frantically yelled out, "I caught a fish," and ran to the pole. But I was unsure of how exactly I was going to get the fish to the shore with my current mess. I managed to flip the fish to the bank and brag about how my weak effort caught the only fish. It wasn't the biggest fish, but it was the only one thus far. I believe the fish was a small Brimn or Perch. I rescued him from the hook and released him back to his aquatic home.

Yarra and Hayden enjoyed the sun, boat ride and a bit of fishing. We did catch a couple of other small fish and threw them back. We all had a very fun afternoon!