A Weekend With Cousins

A weekend with the cousins at Wenatchee River is now Robby's caught-the-big-one story. Early one morning, Arnie and Robby traveled down the river to find a good fishing spot. The river has trout and hatchery steelhead among other species, so during his first venture out, Arnie had caught several small trout. He was hoping that Robby would have good luck that morning, too. They had to climb down a pretty steep bank and clamor across rocks to get to a great spot, but what a worthwhile trip! After only 30 minutes, Robby landed a 10 pound steelhead. The fish was about half Robby's size. When he hooked it, he couldn't get out a full sentence in his excitement, "Dad! Fish...big...line..." Arnie laughed at the Murphy's Law moment. He had not brought his net or club, thinking they would be reeling in small trout and then releasing them. It took another 30 minutes to bring in the fish. Robby did it all by himself, then brought it home for us to cook up for lunch. I was surprised that they were back so early, until I saw that beautiful steelhead!

We had a dissection lesson with the six cousins while I gutted the fish, learning the names of the fins, the names of the internal organs, and learning how to open a fish to best meet the needs of filleting it. Hank, the youngest cousin, had the most fun with the gutting of the fish. He is five - a brave five. He was willing to hold the different organs - even the heart which was still "beating" when we took it out. He was so excited when Katie pulled the lens out of the eye to examine. His questions were great. "What does that do?" when we took out the swim bladder. And "is he still alive?" when the heart came out still pumping. When we took the eye out, he noted, "Daddy, fish have eyes on both sides of their heads so they can see both sides when they swim." Heather and Dan are raising a little scientist!

We were excited to barbecue the salmon for lunch. I went through the refrigerator for ideas and came up with tomato-onion-cantaloupe salsa for one fillet. Arnie requested onion, Worcestershire sauce reduction for the other. Dan and his daughter, Della, made Indian Fry Bread to go with the fish. How delicious. Lunch was a big group effort and so worth it.