The King is Dead (almost)...

Here's showing what guys like me (with a little more money and marketing saavy) can do to bring good beer back to this great country of ours. Check out the Brooklyn Brewery video. I used to drink their beer regularly when I lived in Maryland. I won a blue ribbon at the Great Frederick Fair with my Black Chocolate Stout clone. You gotta admire Garrett Oliver.

Time to Go Fishin'

My daughter and her two children are visiting us for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, my granddaughter Lucy and I went fishing. It was too early for a homebrew, and she’s only four, so I focused on the fishing aspect of the journey.

Lucy has never been fishing. She lives in Albany, NY. I’m not sure if they have fish there. Since we were in the south, we decided that her first fishing trip should involve catfish. So after an early wakeup call and some oatmeal and quite a bit of crying (apparently brought on by the early wakeup), we were on the road to the Sunrise Catfish Farm at 0700. It takes about 40 minutes for the drive up towards Deridder. We saw lots of cows and horses on the way. Lucy discussed them all with me.

When we arrived, a very nice man rented us a vintage Zebco rod-n-reel, sold us some chicken livers for bait, and directed us in our truck to the levee on the side of the main pond. I rigged up Lucy’s rod with a hook and weight and put a big fat chicken liver on the hook. Lucy said “throw it out far”, so I did, and it splashed into the middle of the pond. I told her to hold the line tight while I put together my own fishing rig. While I was working on my hook, Lucy said “something’s pulling my pole”. And indeed, something was. After quite a struggle, she landed a 4 pound channel cat! It looked bigger than her.

Lucy's First Fish

After taking care of the fish, I put another liver on Lucy’s hook, “threw it far”, and then joined her with my offering. Something then “pulled her pole” again. Another struggle; another nice catfish. She was on fire! And then she decided to count…two for me grandpa…none for you. The pressure was on. I finally caught one. Then she caught two. Then I caught another. Then she started to get tired from all of the hard work she told me she was doing. So after about 75 minutes, we took our fish and weighed them in at 16.5 lbs.

Lots of Fish!

The nice folks at Sunrise Catfish Farm cleaned our fish, and then we drove home. Lucy took a nap, as she was worn out from all of that hard work catching this fish.

Fishing is hard work

The fish are in the freezer now. We’re saving them for the fryer this weekend when Lucy’s dad, a true catfish aficionado, comes to town. I hear they’re going fishing while I am at work. I hope he can throw it far and not have the liver fall off of the hook…