Her first and last frog fishing trip

[cassidyta]

I got up this morning to head out to a local pond that is a favorite of mine. The pond is not big and it is covered with weeds and muck. I call it my frog pond because, with the exception of a few holes in the muck, that is all you can really use.
My wife, God bless her, decided that she would accompany me on this trip. I was very excited about the idea of fishing with my wife. It is something she has only done twice in the 10 years we have been together. My bride is very much a city girl who thinks roughing it means not having a starbucks at the resort.
After about 20 minutes of instruction, it became obvious that the best plan was for me to cast the bait caster and allow her to reel it in. I had no issues with this course of action and knew that it would be less time consuming than working out any backlash she may create.
It was easy for me to tell when she had an explosion on the frog. Her "make your ears bleed" shrieks gave it away. After watching this happen a couple of times, I attempted to explain the value of a hook set. I will say that this was the only concept of fishing she appears to understand. This was evident by the velocity of the frog as it approached my head TWICE!
I know for a fact that the thought going through my mind was "you need to be patient my love, you can't just jerk the rod" While that may have been my thoughts, it apparently did not equal the words that came out of my mouth. After 15 minutes of saying I am sorry, I convinced her that we should stay for a little while longer.
This time I put my rod away and stood by her, keeping a firm hand on the rod she was using. Helping remind her of the need to keep the tip low until she felt the actual pull on the line. With our new plan in affect we proceeded to lose the next strike because the fish simply did not get frog deep enough in it's mouth.
She was not discouraged and I felt a sense of pride that the miss brought out her competitive spirit. I could tell that for the first time, she really wanted to catch a fish.
I was practically day dreaming of she and I on a boat, fishing in a couples tourney when I heard the explosion. My bride gripped the rod and prepped to set the hook. Since I could tell she had this under control I released the rod and simply watched the love of my life with her first bass. Her hook set was perfect. For the first time in her life, she had a fish on.
Since I was confident that the rod, reel, and braid would support this effort, I chose not to explain the drag or the need to play the fish a little before horsing it into the shore.
She was doing quite well and even yelled with excitement as the fish did it's tail walk. It was great to see her first bass just feet from the shore. I told her to stop reeling once the fish was close enough that I could reach it with the net. I scooped it up and I am not sure which of us was smiling more. I was certain that asking my wife to hold the fish was more than she could handle so I reached into the net and pulled it out. It was a nice fish, just shy of 2 lbs. I held it up for her to admire and was showing her how to remove a hook. She had gotten much closer to this fish than any fish in her life.
It was then that the fish flicked its tail. I guess she was not expecting it to do anything once it was landed. For reasons I still can not explain, she felt inclined to set the hook once more. (please note, I had my thumb firmly in the mouth of the bass at this point and was removing the second hook on the spro frog) Yep, she firmly hooked my left thumb. This time, there was nothing nice about my thoughts, and I did not even attempt to censor the emotion I was feeling. My wife was able to understand that pulling the rod inflicted more pain on me and figured the best thing would be to get the rod away from her hands. She accomplished the feat by tossing my rod and reel into the pond and sitting down to cry.
On a bright note, the fish was released unharmed. Additionally, when we got home, I was able to teach my son how a hook can be pushed through the flesh to have the barb pinched or cut.
The down side...my wife has informed me that she will NEVER fish again. Part of me is sad, but my thumb is grateful.