Fish are friends, not food for grandson

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a grandson a fish and he will play with it all afternoon.

Recently my daughter and her family went fishing. They had a bucket full of small mullet for bait. One-year-old Jacob tried to grab the fish in the bucket and when he couldn't catch them, he had a tantrum. Then he threw mud at the fish. I'm guessing the terrible two's will take on a new meaning with this child.

After someone handed one of the wiggly creatures to him he was happy. I doubt if the fish was pleased.

My daughter caught her first fish at Eastwood Lake near Dayton, Ohio. We had gone out in a boat with her grandfather looking for bluegill. She was the only one to catch anything that day. I think she was two or three years old at the time.

Some of my earliest memories involve watching my grandfather leave to go up to Put-In-Bay to go fishing with his friends. At the time I thought it was called Puddin' Bay.

I would help him gather fat nightcrawlers the evening before. When his friend pulled up with the boat the next morning I thought it looked like an ocean liner, it seemed so huge.

After they returned my grandmother would cook up the catch and it was delicious. Unfortunately, I have never been able to replicate her recipe.

After we moved to the farm my grandfather had a series of heart attacks and the trips to Lake Erie stopped. We spent many an afternoon catching sunfish in our creek. We never ate the sunfish, it was strictly catch and release.

After he died I would badger my mother into going fishing with me. Our dog, Lassie, would join us to keep the snakes away.

My brothers came along when I was 15 and 16. When they were growing up they also spent many hours down by the creek. One brother, Michael, would catch catfish with his hands. He also caught turtles and anything else that moved.

By that time Mom lived at the little house on the corner and Grandma stayed on the farm. Michael would take the fish he caught and keep them in the washtub at Mom's until she made him take them back to the creek so she could do laundry.

These days he fishes with a pole. My other brother doesn't care much for the sport. I haven't baited a hook in decades.

My daughter and her family view fishing as an enjoyable way to spend time together. Granddaughter Emma likes to catch fish with her pink Barbie pole although she still won't touch them. From what I'm hearing, grandson Jacob is going to take after Michael and catch aquatic life forms without use of a pole or net.

On the one hand, I view catch-and-release as torturing fish for sport. On the other, I have tossed my share of the injured creatures back into the water to live another day. I enjoy eating fish and other seafood as much as I dislike cleaning them.

For now, grandson Jacob isn't worried about cleaning, cooking or even eating fish. He just wants to play with them and make them dance in the sand.[[In-content Ad]]