Learning, memory, and Passion

We got to go fishing on the side of the road in a river nesteled up angainst a cliff today! It was a kinda big deal for me because we finally had time to stop at one of those 'perfect fishing places' one tends to see as they're wandering down old state highways..

We have an old fishing rod and reel with us, the only one we could find before the trip. It has a push button line release. The gang and I spent ouir last several fishing trips getting used to a spinning reel, (the open faced ones that occasionally spit line out in a tangled gnarl if you don’t treat them just so.) None of us has used a push button reel since before the pandemic started.

It took me a little work to come back up to speed,with the reel, but I finally managed it. The relearning curve was taking longer for the eleven and 9 year olds. Then, I asked the seven year old if she’d like a turn, and wow!

She walked up, took the rod and reel--ignored my intake of breath to begin the explanation of how to use the thing—and did a perfect cast, plopping the bait into the river excactly where she wanted it. That wasn’t all. She began to rewind the line, making sure to keep the tip of the rod up, and her winding speed quick enough to avoid getting caught on the bottom, but slow enough for the fish to have time to see the bait, Simply put, she nailed the whole fishing thing after bare minimum a year off from fishing at all, and two years off from that particular kinds of reel.

When she was little—you know, like four years old—she was the most excited about fishing, and I suppose that explains it? It sure is cool to watch though.

Oh, and we didn’t catch anything, but we all had a blast between trying to catch fish, and watching the two angry Canadian geese who’d nested half way up the cliff on the other side of the river do random flybys.

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