Ben’s first fish

There was a fishing clinic going on where grizzled old fishermen taught eager young fishermen how to bait, cast (ok, drop), and remove the fish from the hook once caught.

We planned our campout around the fishing clinic, and Ben was excited.  The only fishing he had done before was at a Boy Scout campout at the beach.  Kevan did *not* want to fish, so Ben fished in the surf with Kevan's fishing pole.  Nobody caught anything that time.
This time, once again Kevan chose not to fish when the time came, although he did do the knot tying and casting practice.

He did not relish the idea of figuring out what to do with the fish once it was caught (and doesn't eat fish, so...)  One of the grizzled old fishermen had been out there all morning fishing off the dock and had caught something like 27 of the sunfish we were fishing for.  So we knew there were some there!  Ben was very patient, keeping his line in while other boys would move to a new spot after 5 minutes without a bite.

Finally, he got a bite and reeled it in like a pro!

Great! Now what?  My husband, who has caught and cleaned many a fish in his day, did not come along on this campout.  I have caught quite a few fish but have never so much as watched while they were being bonked on the head, much less learned how to clean one!  Kevan and I tried valiantly to persuade Ben to let the poor little thing go, but he was determined to eat it!  One of the grizzled old fisherman hooked the fish to a string for him, and we let him swim in the water while we fished some more.  Finally it was time to stop fishing.  I asked one of the moms that was with us how I was supposed to kill the fish.  She said that if we pulled it out of the water, it would be dead within a minute or two.  So, we put it in a bag and took it with us.  It survived our walk back to the store, where the old guy offered to clean the fish for Ben, but I declined because I had given someone a ride from the campsite and they were very anxious to get back to the campsite.  It then survived our drive around the campground, which took several minutes because we took the scenic route.  When we got to our site, we put the fish in the cooler.  I hope it was dead very soon thereafter.  Kevan and Ben seemed to think it was still alive about 5 minutes later when they checked, but I didn't look.

Finally, at home the next day, daddy cleaned and grilled Ben's fish for him.  He loved it!