This is no fish tale

By By Leada Gore, Editor
Years ago, I got the bright idea to go deep-sea fishing. I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea, but for some reason I did.
On our fishing day, Greg and I woke at the crack of dawn, boarded a ship with about five other people and went to what seemed to be halfway to Cuba.
I knew I was in trouble when the deck hand grabbed a hunk of bait – it looked like squid – and cut off a piece to put on my hook. My stomach began rolling along with the ocean.
He snaked the bait around my hook and I cast my line into the ocean. It wasn’t long before something tugged on the line. I reeled in the line and brought with it a large, red fish. It was a red snapper and, according to the deck hand, a “keeper.”
He unlodged the hook from the fish’s mouth and began to put on more bait.
I stopped him and turned to Greg.
Yes, I was. I spent the rest of the day asleep in the small cabin. Greg said it was the most expensive nap in the world’s history.
Fast forward several years. Our family had a chance last weekend to go fishing at Greg’s brother’s house. Greg knew better than to ask me if I wanted to fish – that last trip did me in forever – but I thought Sutton might enjoy the trip.
Donning her closed-toed shoes and fishing hat and enough bug spray to drown even the most determined mosquito, Sutton joined us as we went to the pond.
Greg helped Sutton cast her line and they sat on the bank and watched the small cork. It didn’t take long for it to take a dive under the water and Greg and Sutton started bringing the fish in from the water.
It was a catfish and a large one.
They unhooked it and laid it on the bank.
Sutton looked at her dad.
And she was.
There’s long been a debate between nature and nurture, what we’re born to do and what we learn. In this case, maybe it was a little bit of both.
Fish are kind of yukky, after all.