The Cooler of Death

I don't know how she did it, but somehow yesterday morning HannahC managed to convince The Mrs. that she needed "some Daddy time" where just HannahC and I would go fishing. She chose as a venue, "that pond at Riverbend where we caught all those bluegill last year."

Well, why not. We've been fishing twice this year at new locations, and thus far only The Mrs. had caught a fish, and it was a stinky green catfish. On the way, however, we made a slight (40 miles?) detour up to Wyoming to hit one of the fireworks stores that's right on the border. Ya see, in Wyoming, eveything is legal. However, there are a lot of people who moved from California to Colorado not because they wanted to get away from the creeping death that is California culture like we did, but because they wanted to preserve the god-awful California culture, only in a nicer place. Like Boulder or Fort TomCollins.

In the city of Fort TomCollins, all fireworks of all kinds are banned. This is purportedly because of the danger of brush fire, however one would be hard placed to find any brush in Fort TomCollins. What one finds is a lot of "progressives" who spend most of their time thinking up bizarre ways to legislate away traditional American values - like fireworks and lot sizes larger than 5000 sq ft.

Happily, we don't live in For TomCollins, so only a small subset of fireworks are banned: anything that leaves the ground, and anything that explodes. i.e., all the "fun" fireworks. But we still can get sparklers and spark fountains and smoke bombs and such. So it's almost like being in America.

But if you drive to Wyoming, you can get all the good stuff. The place I chose among the three stores at the very first exit in Wyoming offered quite a deal - 140 free bottle rockets with a $35 purchase. Needless to say, I managed to score 140 free bottle rockets. And some free smoke bombs (yawn).

MaxieC, however, was terrified of the fireworks again this year. He sat in the back of the pickup truck with The Mrs. wearing hearing protection and crying that the house was going to burn down while I lit off a few of the things last night. I think just about everything I set off was actually legal in my area, too. Nothing scary.

This morning, he told me how cool the stuff was.

So, anyways, HannahC and I got to the fishing hole around 11:00, which is when the bluegill around here start biting. There were a couple other fishermen there, but they were not in our special spot. You could see the water teeming with little baby bluegills.

It was a good day of fishing. HannahC caught a fish about every 10 minutes, for a total of about nine, four of which we kept. She got a 7-incher, which was the biggest bluegill we've seen in any of the ponds around. She also caught a couple of the babies, including one within 30 seconds of her first cast.

A big turtle swam around the whole time keeping an eye on us. I only caught three, but they were decent enough sized to keep. I spent most of my time at the gutting board while HannahC continued to fish. It seemed like as soon as I finished cleaning her last fish and got my hook back in the water, she had another one ready for me.

I spent way too long a time trying to prepare these little dude for the grill. Bluegill is a very labor-intensive snack.


Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads. Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum!


A little onion and lemon and we're good to go.


HannahC is begging to go again today, only this time with the whole family. She thinks MaxieC might be able to catch his first fish at this place. Such an altruist.