So I have this mother, and she broke her arm. But she’s my mother, so she’s still doing things that normal people wouldn’t do, like trying to catch trout on a fly rod – with only her left arm.

Dont’ forget to admire the boat Dad made this last winter!

Turns out, with enough assistants she can catch a trout on a fly rod with only her left arm!

A few days later my mom and I found ourselves watching our friend fish for carp off of our family’s pier.

This is the family pier on the property where my mom grew up and still lives.  I grew up there and visit often.

We have both done lots of fishing off the pier.

But never, ever, has either of us gone carp fishing.

So, of course, we teased him – cause that’s what you do when you’ve just been fly fishing and you are watching someone catch giant ugly fish using corn as bait. 

He even had his daughter and her little princess pole rigged for carp. So we teased him about that too.

Right in the midst of a large amount of friendly banter on the merits and supposed fun of carp fishing, his daughter ran off to play with mine and handed my mom her little princess fishing pole.

Which is when I told my mom that while she could catch a trout on a fly line, I didn’t believe she could catch a carp on a princess pole.

But, if she has enough assistants…

Look at that! A picture with me, the designated “reeler” in it! Photos by Cory.

…she can do that too!

Ok, so the pictures above were from later. But mom and I really did work together to pull in one of the carp in the net using that tiny pink princess pole. Cory already had just netted one of his own and we made him get ours in the net too before we lost it. A memorable first carp catching experience!

And that’s when we stopped teasing… …and asked nicely for an adult-sized pole of our own to use!