Parker Fishes Hard...

It's entered into family lore that if you steal quietly into Parker's room while she is napping you can hear her talking in her sleep. Phrases like, "catfish," "more bait," and "hand me the fillet knife" are clearly intelligible. Awake and on the lake Parker will fish hard.  

She also refers to the boat as "Grandma's boat." 

Parker is busy wearing out a Zebco 202. If you cast it, she will retrieve it. Of course that's not quite what we wanted as we were slip corking catfish yesterday on a very windy day on the lake that kind of made it hard to tell when you had a bite and even harder to set the hook well when you did. Parker missed two bites that as my dad would say of your cork, "went plum out of sight." I barely caught more fish than she did because I could not take my eyes off her cork to watch my own. 

Final tally for the fishing log was 9 catfish with a lot of missed bites and small fish throw backs.  

I recall a deep sea party boat trip with family once when my daughter Mary was about 10 or 12 years old. She was right along side the adults, steadily pulling red snapper off the bottom in 100' of water. The deck hand on the boat asked "where did you learn to fish, little girl?"

By that age she had been fishing so long she had forgotten what it was like to not fish. She replied to the deckhand, "I don't know." Parker is going to be just like that.