Teach a Boy to Fish

I pulled Micah out of school Friday to take him fishing. This lack of regard for the importance of education is frowned upon in Germany. Fortunately, Micah is in kindergarten in the international school. These twin distinctions must have moved his truancy to a different category. Teachers lined up in the hall to congratulate me and tell us to have a good time.

Fishing in Germany is not a simple thing. Getting an actual fishing license is a huge investment in time and money. The 6 week class reportedly costs 1,000 Eu ($1,300).

Fortunately, there are fully stocked fishing farms that don't require a license. On a sporting level, they are probably on par with the quail farm that Dick Cheney hunted at. The fish don't have much of a chance. Since I was using a vacation day to pull my son out of school, this was exactly what I wanted.

We bought some bait and went straight to the salmon pond. The clear shallow pond was full of beautiful salmon. We had a great view of watching them look at our bait. After an hour and a half and another bait purchase, it turns out that the salmon stood a chance after all. We moved on to the trout pond where we quickly caught several trout.

Today, it developed that I'm quite good at gutting and cleaning trout but not so good at deboning them. Probably there is a youtube video out there that will explain what I did wrong.