Family Fun

In my family, fishing and hunting are very important to us. It isnt just the fact that we like to do these thing, but it also brings us together. The outdoors is a great place for the family because everyone can get involved and hooked at any age. To me, fishing and hunting with family helps create strong bonds. These family trips make great memories and stories. I think that being in the great outdoors with your family is the greatest thing on earth. This is why I love to fish and hunt, because its a sort of family tradition.

Every other year, my moms side of the family comes down to Port Mansfield to visit us for Thanksgiving or Christmas. This is when I have the most fun because my grandma and uncles and aunts like to fish. So whenever they come down we always make it a point to designate one to two days for a family fishing trip. This trip is the most fun that I have all year because with family, the trash talking begins early. This trip is about pride and to see who can catch the biggest fish by the end of the day, sometimes anyways.

When the fishing begins, it gets quiet, for about 15 minutes. With family we can never stay quiet all through the day, we are all hollering and screaming stuff like I got a big one! or Thats a little fish, let me show you how to catch the big ones. While being focused on being Angler of the Year, we pretty much just joke around and have a good time.

We probably head out at about 8 oclock or so when we do this family fishing trip. Although I would like to be on the water earlier, it doesnt bother me that we leave late because its family. We get to our spot and Im usually the first one in the water. I want to get ahead of everybody else. Like they say The early bird gets the worm, - right? Well I like to think that anyways because every year its the same thing, I always catch the small fish. For me its actually like the story of the tortoise and the hare where Im the rabbit.

Our group of family members that attend our little family fishing trip consists of my parents, my brother Daniel, my uncle Andrew, my uncle Michael, my uncle Claudio, my uncle Cleo, my grandmother Isabel, and me. This group of people causes some very hilarious incidents on the water. We havent even left the harbor and we are already laughing at somebody or something. I have a lot of great memories and stories from fishing with my family and all of them are very funny.

Around 4 years ago, we went out one morning not expecting anything that happened that day. We were backing out of the corner boat slip where it is tight quarters and my dad was getting used to driving his new boat. My mom was on the bow about to push off of the pylon from the next row of boat slips when my dad threw the throttle into reverse to keep from hitting the pylon. My mom flew forward grabbing with her cat-like instinct onto the cement pylon. The funny part was I dont think her feet ever touched the water.

Once we got past this event, we left the harbor and sped off to our spot. The sun was up high, the water was clear and we were spread out pretty good. We waded a pretty good ways before any of us caught a fish. We walked up on a school of reds and soon everybody was hooked up on every cast. My grandma, who is now an avid angler, was even catching and releasing redfish. And out all of these redfish, my uncle Cleo cast into the middle of the school and starts to holler I got a big one! He gets the fish in with a struggle and to everybodys surprise, it a big mullet. This was so funny and unusual that we had to take a picture.

Things like these help make great memories and stories. This is why I look forward to the holidays every year. I love to be with my family because you never know how much longer you have with them. I am glad to have a family like I do because we can bond and get together and fish. I would like to wish everybody happy holidays and be safe.