A REAL FISH STORY (GRAND-PRIZE WINNER)

SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2007
One afternoon we gathered up our kiddie fishing poles and some night crawlers and headed out to the neighborhood pond to feed the ducks and practice casting our lines. As usual, I baited the hooks, and the kids worked hard at tossing the bobber out as far as they could and reeling it in "slowly." We had several snags in bushes, snarls in lines, disappearing worms, and close calls around hungry ducks and turtles. Finally, we successfully cast my daughter's line. I was getting Jacob's line ready when we heard a loud zing! Mallory's line was being pulled out very fast. She screamed and tugged as hard as she could, but the little pole could not handle the weight. I ran over and began to pull the line in by hand while she reeled. The kids were jumping up and down, squealing with excitement. As we reached the end of the line, I couldn't believe my eyes. A largemouth bass had swallowed a tiny sunfish that had eaten Mallory's worm. As I pulled the bass from the water, the tiny sunfish fell out of his mouth. The kids went wild! I was jumping up and down with them. We phoned Grandma and Grandpa, who rushed right over to photograph our prize catch before we released him. The pride that my children felt that day holding up their beautiful fish was priceless.