More Fishing and the Spooner Rodeo

Since we didn't bring the pickup to the lake this trip, I prevailed upon my good neighbor, Jerry, to come over and pull my boat to a landing so that I could get it launched. Here are two retired guys from the north woods about to take off for said launching. See the happiness? That's what retirement is all about.

Once the boat was back in the water, we headed out for some non-dock fishing. Clara was pretty excited. I had recently purchased two new fishing rods for grandkid use. One is pink (really) and one is blue, and when you crank the line in on each of them, lights flash around the perimeter of the spool. These are very fancy grandkid fishing rods!

Henry, who had mastered fishing over the prior two years, was eager too.

Here is Clara with the new, pink, granddaughter fishing rod. (The rods stay at the lake for use by whichever granddaughter or grandson might be present.)

Henry quickly caught on to the casting techniques of a spinning rod. He had previously only used a closed-face reel on his special Spiderman fishing rod.

Clara really liked playing with those worms. This does not fit my stereotype of a girl, and that's just fine with me.

She soon hooked another fish.

But, like Henry a few years ago, she seemed most fascinated with being able to watch all the fish we had caught in the livewell of the boat.

Here's Henry with another catch. I believe he caught at least a dozen fish this year, surpassing his prior record of two.

One night, we went to the annual Spooner, WI rodeo. This is a big deal up this way.

Clara and Henry had spotted a pony ride on the way to our seats, so Betsy, Pete and I backtracked with them for a chance to ride a pony. They waited more-or-less patiently for their turn.

Here is Clara on Sparky.

Henry rode Banner.

This was the 58th annual rodeo at Spooner. There was lots of opening ceremony pomp and circumstance.

Then we watched as the bare-back bucking horse competition kicked off the evening's events. This was followed by calf roping, mutton busting (kids trying to stay astride a lamb), and double steer roping. As the evening grew quite late and we all tired, we left before the final saddle bronc riding and other events. It was fun while it lasted!