Things are Getting a Little Fishy Around Here

One of the things the kids began to envision when I talked about our RV trip was going fishing, preparing and eating what they caught. At first I giggled at this. I went fishing as a child and my dad would scale and fillet the fish. But I had no idea how to do it myself. The fishing part is pretty easy, empale a poor earthworm on a hook and cast it in. I thought maybe this idea would drop out of their mind. But I did pack their fishing poles so they could at least go fishing.

Well, what do you know, this Georgia campsite had two boat docks at the river and a lake for even more fishing fun. The girls expressed an interest in going so we checked out where to get the bait. We saw a couple who were cleaning up some fish on the boat dock. I approached them, “Would you mind if you showed us how you clean up the fish and get them ready to cook?”, I asked. “Oh sure, no problem”, they responded. The wife was scaling the fish and the husband cutting the heads off and gutting them. The girls watched for a bit. When the girls thought they could tackle it, we headed to the pier with a bucket full of live shrimp and two poles.
They fished for a little while, me baiting and casting for them and them hoping for a fish to land on their pole. Alaina tired of it fairly quickly and went to play at the playground with Nadia. But Alissa stuck it out. A few hours later, I caught a fish but Alissa still had no luck. So we threw mine back in and headed home. Alissa was discouraged, she felt she wasn’t any good at this fishing hobby but I told her not to give up.

Sunday, April 26th……..

A new day dawned and I asked the kids what they wanted to do? Go back to Jekyll Island (my pick), go fishing, hit the beach at the lake, etc. Thom and Nadia decided the beach was a good choice and the twins and I headed to the pier. Early on, we had an issue. Our collapsible bucket with all the bait blew into the river, ugh! There was no fetching it back as it drifted farther and farther away from us. So we walked back to the campsite, got another sturdier bucket, bought more bait (dead this time) and tried once more. Alissa started baiting and casting her own pole. It was a GOOD day and Alissa realized that she’s not so bad at this fishing hobby :-). She caught three of the four fish we got that day.

So they’re not the biggest fish out there but it wasn’t about that. It was a mission to say that we could do this. We could go catch some fish, fillet them and cook them up for dinner. And that’s exactly what we did! I think what we have are whitings but I can’t be certain. A guy came by while we were on the pier and asked, “What do you have there?”. Our fish were covered up with ice. I responded, “Fish, I have no idea how to identify fish, so we have four fish”. To which we both giggled. I told him I was going to go home and google them!

I went to the store and got some beer and we beer battered them. Alissa decided to use seasoned bread crumbs on hers. She got her father’s famous sauce recipe and cooked some of that up to accompany them. We also supplemented with some chicken because those four fish weren’t going to feed all five of us. We fried them over the campfire in a cast iron skillet. It was a yummy dinner full of pride and accomplishment. I’m so glad the girls succeeded in their mission!

Thom cooking over the fire.

While we were on the pier, we got an idea of the culture around these Georgia coastal waters. We talked to locals here and there. You can tell how much their lives are wrapped around these waters. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, there are dozens and dozens of boats launching from and returning to the dock, children in life vests, crabbers, doggies joining their owners for an afternoon on the water and lots of fishing poles. We saw a family of five come with some string, a net and some chicken neck. It turns out they were crabbing. The husband had come to watch the kids while the wife, who had been researching how to do it, worked on crabbing with her oldest daughter. It was really cool to watch. We left and came back after dinner and she was still at it! Her determination made me smile. She had a half dozen crabs in her bucket. She said it wasn’t as successful as she’d hoped but she was learning. Aren’t we all. Life is one big long learning experience. Georgia was a place full of stretching our wings and learning new things for all of us. We were a little sad to leave.