A-fishing we will go - part two

The tradition to go fishing continued all through my high school and college years.

For a while we drove to St.-Louis Pass in the Galveston area. Those were long days. Any good fisherman knows that you have to get up before the crack of dawn to go fishing. So, that's what we did. My dad, mom and I got up very early... like three thirty in the morning, so we could get ready and drive the hour and half to St.-Louis Pass and be there by sunrise.

We had lots of good time there and lots of good fishing... flounders, trouts, croakers, and such. And they were always good eating when we got home.

After one of these trips, we had some bait left over and so we thought we might throw a line by our house in Lake Houston. We spend a couple of hours catching absolutely nothing. Resignedly, we pack up our gear and went home, disappointed that there were no fish in the lake. As we drove home, my father had a light bulb go off... We were fishing with shrimp in a lake that had fish that had never seen shrimp.

How true that is, I don't know. As you can probably tell already, I'm by no means an expert fisherman. I'm not even an apprentice fisherman. Ok, let's say it straight out. I'm not a fisherman. But what I do know is that we had a deep belly laugh out of that one, imagining the fish in the water going up to the shrimp saying:

- Hey, Fred, what is that?
- I don't know, Bert, I've never seen anything like this before.
- What are we suppose to do with it?
- I don't know, but I'm not putting my mouth on that thing.

I'm still smiling today as I recall this story. I love my parents. It is sad to think that my girls never experienced fishing with Pépé (Grandpa, in French). I need to take them. And I will, real soon, I promise.