As long as I'm bragging...

I'm not a die hard fisherwoman by any means. But Monday night I was definitely the champion in our family. (Not that Eli was all that willing to acknowledge that fact.) Anyway, I was proud to out-fish the boys. I caught the 2 biggest.

We had a good night and brought home 8 walleye and 1 northern pike. This was the first that Kendall allowed us to bring home a northern pike. They are notoriously stinky fish and he hates to touch them. In fact, if he ever catches one he tries to get it off his line without ever touching it and he especially doesn't want to bring it into the boat. They're bigger and fight more, but less good to eat. I guess it's hard to filet them and get rid of all the bones. But friends of ours grind them up, bones and all, and make fish patties out of them. So as an apprentice bushwoman, I naturally have been wanting to try that.

After a long, hard battle with the unwilling fish, I triumphantly won the fight and we got the northern into the boat. (It took a bit of sweet-talking on my part. To Kendall, not to the fish.) I, somehow, was able to convince my husband that we really needed to try a northern pike. You have to understand how much my husband does not like Northern Pike. He really doesn't.

Of course, I didn't want to sully my delicate hands. The fish was huge and throwing a fit in the bottom of the boat. It really was oozing with slime and it did stink even more than regular fish. (You can understand that sully and delicate hands part.) So Kendall, my strong bushman, wrestled that fish. After an especially violent thrashing of the fish Kendall looked up at me with an annoyed expression on his face. However, that was not all that was on his face. He also had a splat of stinky slime across his forehead. Of course I was dying laughing while trying to keep my feet away from the thrashing fish. My Kendall conquered the beast and we will someday eat it. And I was sure to let him know how thankful I was for his knightly ways. It was truly an act of love.