40 Rivers To Freedom

I’ve gotta admit to feeling a little proud of my son today.  Why?

Proud Moment #1: Son finds his first fishing spot that he can truly call his own.

We’re driving over to the local puddle and about half way there, he asks if we can try a new spot.  “Sure.”  I tell him.  The pond isn’t a puddle by any means.  It’s actually pretty big as far as bluegill holes are concerned.  Yet I usually only fish one of three different spots.  It’s not like I ever do bad, so I’ve fallen into one of those ruts where you stop exploring a certain spot any further.  Apparently, he’s had his eye on this little patch of mud on the far bank for a while now; cause he had the whole thing planned out.  He told me where he thought the best place to park was and everything.

We get down to the water and it was like we had walked into a little bluegill brothel.  There were so many beds, the bottom of the pond looked more like a honeycomb than, well, the bottom of a pond.  His evening was epic, to say the least.

Proud Moment #2: Son smells it coming

Last night the mrs. sent me on a trip to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner.  The boy came along to pick out dessert (see proud moment #3).  Along the way to the store he says,

“Dad, I bet tonight would be a good night to go fishing.”

“Yeah, I bet it would be a good night to go fishing” I replied

“I can smell it in the air” he says back

“Smell what?”  I asked

“It just smells like a good night to go fishing.”

I’ve always preached that just before it rains is one of my favorite times to be on the water. Well, 30 minutes later we got about 1/2″ of rain.

Proud Moment #3: Report Card Time

Yeah, he’s only in 2nd grade, (well, technically he’s now in between 2nd and 3rd), but he managed to keep his grades up throughout the whole school year.  In fact they got better and better, along with his social and listening skills, each grading period.  Adding to that- he was pretty active in sports the whole time, specifically wrestling, where he spent 6 months practicing around 2 hours, three nights a week for weekend tournaments.  His season was capped by placing in the top 10 at the Ohio Tournament of Champions, the largest tournament in the country; as well as placing 3rd at the Eastern Nationals. Here is a picture of him, and all of the hardware he added to the top of his dresser this season

There should be one more in that pile, however there was a tournament where he took 2nd instead of 1st and had a moment of poor sportsmanship; so we didn’t let him have his trophy.  In all honesty, he really did get jipped on points, but that was no excuse to act like a two year old.

Anyways, my point is, I’m damn proud of him.