A New Fisherman

Ramsey has gotten better about being in the boat.  With all of his "energy", he's been a little unsettled in the past, but he's starting to be quite the little sea-faring lad.

Last Saturday was an extraordinarily beautiful day for September.   Eric, Ramsey, and I went on the boat to take a ride, all the while pulling cranks (our only option, as we need a new battery for our trolling motor).   We'd heard that the perch had been biting like mad!

 Ramsey was curious to check out the depth finder and to see if he could spot any fish.  He was also good at steering the boat.

We hung out, enjoying the beautiful sunny day.  Ramsey happily played with his stick and grabbed some of Daddy's ice cubes, for his own little science experiment.

 On our first pass, we had a fish on the line.   Ramsey was eager to reel it in.

He had some help from Dad for a little bit, but then reeled it in on his own.

 Fish #1 was a very nice-sized perch.   Ramsey lovingly named it "Unskinny Bop" and Daddy threw it in the live well.

 Eric had the notion that if we had a fish in the tank, that alone would keep Ramsey occupied for a long period of time.  He wasn't wrong!

The act of adding water to the live well with a bucket was fun in and of itself!  Ramsey purposely put his head in the way of the stream of water so he could get wet.

 He kept doing it over and over.  When Eric had enough water in the well, Ramsey thought he'd be a comedian and stick his head in the water.   Picture "Goony Goo Goo" (Eddy Murphy fans will know what this means), bobbing for perch!

 Then, he had to try to catch the fish.  He was a good little hand-catcher, as he caught that fish at least 30 times (no lie - that poor fish must've wondered why he deserved that kind of punishment!).

 Each time Ramsey caught the fish, he'd say, "Look Mom, take my picture!"  So, I bet I have about a hundred pictures of him and Unskinny Bop.

 Literally.

 Over and over, he caught that poor fish, and dropped him back into the live well.

 Sometimes he would kiss it.  Sometimes he would just laugh and jump up and down, so proud of himself.

 The one person we thought would have the least amount of fun and be bored was having the time of his life!

 We wound up catching another perch (Ramsey proudly named it "Tinny").  And, when Eric was reeling his last line up, he had a keeper walleye on. 

 When we got into the house, it was a bit late, so Ramsey's bed time was extended.  Ramsey was so proud of the fish he'd caught!   We watched Daddy clean them, then it was time for bed.

Sunday morning, I overheard Ramsey on the monitor talking to himself (or maybe he was talking to Riggs, who sleeps on his bed with every night), saying that Unskinny Bop and Tinny were dead.  :-(   I figured he might have an issue with "knowing" the fish and then not want to eat them.
But, when I fried them up for supper on Sunday night, he didn't have any problems gobbling them up!   It was important to us for Ramsey to see the full circle of "lake to table".

The only thing that could have made the weekend better is if Connor could have been with us.