The Most Perfect Mother’s Day!

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All I wanted for Mother’s Day was for my family to come fishing with me. My husband, Jeff, daughter Kendall (15) and son Cole (12).  Kendall does not like fishing, hunting or the outdoors (completely opposite of me!).  Cole likes fishing, but he’s an active 12-year old boy who doesn’t like to sit still, so fishing in a boat gets boring for him.

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Regardless, both kids didn’t complain once all day and actually had a great time!  We fished in the 48th Annual one-day Minnesota Bound Crappie Contest on Lake Minnetonka, near Minneapolis.

mothersday3More than 2,000 anglers now fish this contest every year with thousands of dollars in prizes, but the real winner of the day is that together, anglers raise thousands of dollars for “Fishing For Life” organization while celebrating family life and fishing fun too (http://fishingforlife.org/pages/who-we-are).

I fished it as a kid for years, so really wanted my kids to do the same.  The day started off slow fishing with a bobber and crappie minnow.  After minimal fish catching, I thought let’s try casting tube jigs.  On my first retrieve, I caught a crappie!  Then two more!

Cole jumped right on that and was casting like mad.  He’d get a hit and miss, then a hit and catch one, he was hooked.  We were using Southern Pro tubes in chartreuse, but then switched to pink and black.  Using 4-pound clear mono, the light jigs were easy to cast.  We caught bass and sunfish too.  Such fun!

Kendall was completely content just enjoying the sunshine and watching everyone, and I was just glad she was happy to be out in the boat with us.  I love spending time with my kids and it just feels so good to know that we support each other as a family.  We were in a time crunch before the 2:00 p.m. weigh-in deadline.  We sped over to a secret hot spot my cousin, Mike Ferrell, graciously shared with us.

mothersday4It was really windy, so it was hard to cast those tube jigs.  We switched back to bobber and minnow fishing, tossing our casts all the way into the emerging reeds.  After that, we caught one after another and we didn’t want to leave, it was a blast!  Cole caught the biggest crappie of the day out of our boat, weighing in at 0.71 pounds.  Not enough to win the contest, but close!  Cole is hooked on the thrill of the competition and I look forward to getting him out there again soon.

As busy as all of our schedules are nowadays, it really was one of the best days I could have had having my whole family out together.  We had a lot of laughs and made some great memories this weekend!  Our next fishing trip together will be Memorial Day weekend at Sandy Point on Lake Kabetogama and I can’t wait for that.

It was the most perfect Mother’s Day!

Thank you family!

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