Last year, while we were on vacation, Tom caught a catfish. Since Kriegers are really good at data management and cleaning up after dinner, but don’t know much about fishing, we considered this a serendipitous event. Even crazier was that he caught it with a piece of macaroni and a homemade fishing rod. Maybe catfish are really easy to catch, I don’t know. In fact, I don’t know anything about fish. Except that, until they’re filleted, they’re disgusting.
This year during vacation we’d sometimes look wistfully at the quiet water and say, “Ha! Remember when Tom caught that catfish? That was crazy.”
So imagine my surprise when Tom told me that Steve caught a catfish.
Excuse me?
And this one came just as serendipitously.
Steve was out on his paddle board early in the morning and noticed a milk jug zigzagging through the cove. He grabbed the jug and a catfish was on the other end. Like any true fisherman, Steve put the jug on his paddle board and pulled the catfish home.
Steve had discovered someone’s catfish trap. Apparently this is a thing people do? They set a hook with bait, tie it to a jug (as a bobber) and tie it to a tree where a catfish might find it. The idea is that, when you come back, you might have a catfish. But Steve’s catfish had other ideas and broke loose.
When Tom told me about Steve’s catfish I actually didn’t believe him until I saw the fish. That’s how random it was; I thought there was a greater chance of Tom fabricating a story about a catfish than actually catching a second catfish. But why would Tom lie about a catfish?
Tom didn’t lie about a catfish.
Steve and Lindsay filleted it, and fried catfish nuggets just like last year.
And as we enjoyed the catch we joked, “Ha HA! We’re starting to get good at this! HA HA! Who’s catching dinner tomorrow? HA! HA!”
Earlier in the week Lindsay’s dad (who, coincidentally, does spend a lot of time fishing) visited for a few days and left a few fishing poles. We set both lines because, who knows, right? Both poles were broken before the end of the week.
Broken rods seemed more normal because, as I mentioned before, Kriegers do not fish.
Then we were hanging out at the dock and Steve got an idea. Why not set another catfish trap? The other one worked, why not try it again?
So Steve tied a line to a milk jug and set it in a tree across the cove. After about 30 minutes Steve thought he saw the branch moving. I looked at it and shook my head. No, it’s not moving. Plus, this is too soon. First of all you’re probably not going to catch a fish, and if you do it’ll take much longer.
Tom and Steve rode the paddle board to check the line.
Then they started calling for Lindsay.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
He caught a catfish.
Catfish #3.
Like I said, maybe catfish are the easy fish to catch. Maybe they’re like level 1 in Super Mario Brothers; it’s mostly there to teach you how to use the controllers.
But none of that matters, because catfish is delicious.
Now, we expect catfish. Next summer we don’t need to meal plan for vacation because we already know what we’ll be eating all week: catfish for breakfast, catfish for lunch, catfish for dinner, catfish for midnight snack.
Because if we’ve learned anything from this experience it’s this: maybe Kriegers do know a little about fishing after all.
Wow, those are impressive skills. But can they make a fire escape from a barn using only bailing twine and an old girth?
You should include some pictures of them skinning the catfish. From what I remember, its a pretty intense experience.
it was very, very intense. too intense for me. it involved nailing the fish to a tree. i’m not kidding.
Nathaniel – my brother found a great youtube video that make skinning it so much easier this year. I’ll try to get him to post it here.
Nice jorts.