Another day of Fishing at Huntsville State Park

We had planned to rent a canoe and take the boys out on the lake, but Ryan wanted to go fishing one more time before we left. So after we finished packing up our camp ground Kevin and Ryan headed to the pier. Connor and I decided that we would wait and let them figure out where all the fish were, and what they were biting on while we enjoyed a little walk through the campground which had gone from not a single vacancy to almost abandoned in a matter of hours over the course of the morning as people packed up and headed out.

Connor treed several squirrels, and we spotted a dozen or so birds, including some crows come to see if anything had been left behind, and a pair of cardinals. After a while Connor decided to go see if Ryan was catching anything so we made our way to the pier. As Kevin was keeping an eye on the lines Ryan was playing with future bait.

Both of the boys were fascinated with the worm and played with it for quite a while before Connor started trying to push him into the cracks in the decking and when that didn't work picked him up and tossed him in much to Ryan's displeasure. Luckily Ryan was mollified as he was called to reel in more fish. Connor helped me reel a few in as well - doing one entirely by himself. After a few more catches Connor had reached his limit of fish and was ready to do something else. We decided to take a drive and see the rest of the camping area and maybe pick up a coke for me from the park store. When we got to the store we discovered that they had ice cream so we picked out our favorites and sat down to eat them as quickly as possible before they melted in, and all over our hands. We did a pretty good job of polishing them off without making too much of a mess. By the time we were done it had been almost an hour since we had left Ryan and Kevin on their pier so we hurried back to check on them. Ryan was still happily alternating between reeling in fish, showing everyone his catch, and playing with the worms. He had made friends with some older boys who were fishing on the pier as well. He had become hesitant to touch the fish and one of the boys sat down and showed him how to pick them up carefully so they don't hurt you. The boys got awful comfortable (too comfortable!) climbing the rails to look over the top to see what was going on down below.

It's amazing given how coordinated they are as evidenced by their poor pitful skinned knees that no one fell in. Knock on wood!