This Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing

Yesterday, DH and I, along with FIL and his new wife, participated in a fishing tournament. Let me premise this with some background about me.

Now, anyone who knows me well knows I am not exactly a sportsman (or -woman). I am as close to a girly girl as you can get. I like high heels and feminine clothes with ruffles, bows, flowers and/or lace. Pink is my favorite color. In high school, I didn't play sports. I was in the colorguard. I don't really like to get dirty. I'm a city girl and there are just certain things I need - a bathroom with toilet paper, soap, a toothbrush, a little makeup (at least some powder), a hairdryer, etc. I can deal with camping and hiking for a short trip away from my usual life but it isn't usually my first choice activity. My ideal camping trip equals a nice lodge where I don't have to dig a hole to do #2 and I can sleep in a bed as opposed to a lump of dirt and grass. My ideal hiking adventure involves a group with a tour guide among Hawaiian waterfalls. My hubby is a bit more rugged so there are times when I suck it up and get dirty to show I am game. And not to rain on the parade by being prissy. Yesterday was one of those days.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've been fishing. I really am a novice in that department. My three companions are all pretty intermediate or expert. So, I wasn't expecting to do well at all. As a matter of fact, I was fully prepared to look like an ass while everyone around me brought in huge bass or perch. The weather was against us with lots of much-needed rain the day before so we knew fish would be scarce. Even more of an obstacle, I thought.

I tried for over an hour with a lure and I was getting nada. So, I decided to put a piece of beef jerky on the line and see what happened. Wouldn't you know I caught 5 catfish?! 2 of them were so big that I had to have DH help me reel them in. And you probably wouldn't believe this but those wound up being the only fish we caught that day. No one else caught anything. Me - the little girly amateur - made the only catches of the day. Our largest catfish tipped the scales at 2 lbs, 6 ounces so, obviously, we didn't win the tournament. But still, I was quite proud of myself. I shouldn't underestimate myself next time I'm out of my element. I may just surprise myself. I didn't win an award but I did win some pride.

Another reason I don't particularly like fishing is that I feel bad after I catch something. I see the fish flapping around on the dock with a hook in its mouth and I just want to cry. The poor fish only wanted some breakfast. And BAM - next thing he knows, he's being drug out of the water by his lip. I just feel AWFUL. I always let them go immediately. But for the competition, we had to keep it in order to weigh it in. So, I made DH put a bunch of river water in our cooler to keep the fish alive until we could make it to the town dock to let him go. I checked on the fish repeatedly to make sure it was still breathing and talked to him to let him know I wasn't going to hurt him. DH called me a "bleeding heart". So, I guess this will go down in history as The Bleeding Heart Fishing Expedition. I don't know how men can go hunting and shoot deer or other wild animals. I just couldn't do it. I'd be a mess.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming...I am officially 4dpo today. We got our well-deserved "high" rating for our BD so now it is just wait-and-see-and-try-not-to-obsess mode. I was tinkering around and noticed that, if we get lucky, my due date will be July 9. Notice anything strange about this particular date? I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. All I can say is it would be a very odd coincidence.