Becoming a Wyoming Wife - Part 2

Okay, you've read the first step in this whole process. But in order to get to the point where you can definitely say that you've accomplished all of the steps to becoming a Wyoming Wife, you have to go slow... Sometimes, it just seems to slow... And what's the point really? Once you make it through, what do you do? Well, enough of the questions, let's move on to step 2 - Cleaning a fish.

Okay, this has nothing to do with giving the slippery, little guy a shampoo and rinse. It is actually the way that he goes from free fish to dinner on the table.

My loving husband was gone, to California nonetheless, and I had two weeks of the bed to myself and children wanting attention all the time... So what's a girl to do? Most would probably call up Grandma and go to the mall, out to eat and possibly get a massage at a day spa. Me, oh no, I was on the slow track to completing the training set forth by my survival skilled husband. So, me, I take all three of them to the lake, so I can go fishing. Nothing quite says family time like bug spray, sunscreen and cold water, all before the sun rises. I got to the lake about 5:45am, no that's not a typo! Had to be good and ready for some fish! Anyway, I got the kids suited up, put on the goop, and then waded out, tennis shoes on, of course, about 15 feet from shore. Now, I'm not a tall person, so you would just have to know that the pond was not as full as it should be. I actually parked by truck, yup its got four-wheel drive, right on the shore. Anyways, I got side tracked... Sorry!

Okay, so I waded out from shore and began catching my fish! No, I'm not be facetious, I actually began catching fish right away. Used a pretty $0.98 lure I got at Wal-Mart, the small mouth bass couldn't leave the poor thing alone. So, remembering lessons from previous times, I unhooked my fish and put him on the stringer. I pulled out 5 fish in about 3 hours. One being the almost record fish from my last entry. You can actually see what I caught in that last photo. Anyways, there I go again... Okay, so I caught my five fish, 3 small mouth bass and 2 splake, which is a hybrid cross trout fish. So now what do I do? If my loving husband were here, he would probably have done the dirty work for me, but with him working 1100 miles away, I was on my own. My only other choice would be to take them home alive and turn them loose in my stock tanks, but I wasn't too sure how my horses would respond to the torment those fish would exact upon them. So, I bucked up and did what any self-respecting fisherperson would do, I asked for help...

Help came in the form of my 6 year old daughter. Yeah, I know, not the person you thought, but hey, I'm supposed to going through some training here, so why would I ask a man for help??? LOL! Anyways, I get out all the tools, as I had seen loving husband do this before. So I get ready, and I ask my daughter what I'm supposed to do next. Sure enough, she guided me through the whole process lickety split. Had all five cleaned and packaged in about 20 minutes. That time included wrestling with the slippery little suckers!

We got home a little before 10am, as we still had chores to do, and well, I had a newborn and the other two were getting bored quickly. Since then I've gone off and on, and now I outfish my husband, I actually had to give him one of my lures, just so he had a fighting chance :) Since then, my daughter has not let me forget that she had to show me how to do this... All I have to say is I'm mighty proud of her! She'll grow up a lot better with this kind of stuff, than all that s*^t found in the big city!

Well, I've made it through step 2. It's mostly self taught, because according to my spouse, "this is stuff that I should know how to do!" Well, yeah, like that can be just learned, especially if you aren't ever exposed to it! Well, I'll be moving on to step 3 soon enough. Want a hint? It has to do with Christmas tree hunting!

See you soon!