After a few days of 5 am wake up calls and 2nd breakfast after a few hours on a game drive, we decided to mix it up one morning and have our breakfast in the bush. The perfect place to stop was along the dam where the hippos cooled in the water and the lodge stored fishing equipment on the shoreline. While the ranger and tracker set up an elaborate camp stove to make crumpets (aka pancakes…), we got the chance to cast a few lines on the banks and hope the bass were biting.

The Boy enjoys fishing quite a lot. Having spent lots of time on Colorado rivers and Wisconsin lakes, he is seasoned in the art and has a collections of rods and lures to prove it. [Ed. Note: I got to fish! In Africa!] Anyone who is seasoned in fishing knows what this means. He did terrible after talking it up on the drive out there! I, on the other hand, have cast about 5 lines in my lifetime and in the past refused to use his fancy rods instead electing for a $20 Walmart special that was guaranteed to catch a fish out of sheer, dumb luck.

Approaching the shore, I got a refresher course on how to cast and quickly let the line fly. Quickly because Mini was bopping around the shoreline behind me and I wasn’t 100% sure I wouldn’t snag him with the hook while swinging back. I began the process of gently reeling in the line and almost immediately it pulled back — I had a bite! I yelled for help as there was no way I would actually touch this fish. The Boy begrudgingly reeled in his 3rd cast, still empty, to come help me and Mini grabbed the net he preferred to a rod to see what the commotion was. The fish was in, a photo was taken (however we’re clearly out of practice on this blog as we have none without our faces directly next to the fish…), and he was thrown back into the water for another shot at freedom.

Having observed that Mommy caught a fish and was not required to touch or kiss it as the Boy kept teasing him, I convinced Mini to give fishing a shot with me. I cast my line for the second time that day and handed it over to Mini to begin reeling it in. Only a few seconds later, the line pulled taught once more! Mini was not prepared for actual effort or proximity to a fish, so he fled from the shore as I snagged the rod and brought my second bass on my second cast. This one was even bigger than the first, an impressive accomplishment by our tiny wanderer!

At this stage, the Boy was losing his street cred. Even the tracker had wandered over with a line and almost immediately snagged his own bass. The Boy moved into my “honey hole” where I snagged both fish before retiring a champion, but all that resulted there was a line snagged in the bush. The ranger let us know that breakfast was almost ready and our tea was poured. Wandering down to the small dock, the Boy cast over again until finally there was a bite. He reeled and reeled and pulled in…a tiny little sardine! But at least he caught something! [Ed. Note: It was not a bass. It did not have shoulders. But it was a good two-hands long, so it wasn’t super tiny…]