Gone Fishin' at Fort Belvoir

Fort Belvoir’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) offers many wonderful and affordable activities to those in our area with military id cards.  I happen to be a card-carrying  member  of the red, white and blue so recently participated in MWR’s 2^nd Annual  “Troutfest” with my son.

 “Troutfest” essentially consists of the dumping of 700 very hungry 10-12” trout into one of Belvoir’s outdoor pools where they stay for a week or until they’re fished out, whichever comes first.  For the price of $7, each person gets issued a fishing pole, tackle and bait (specifically, corn, who knew?) and  are allotted two fish. 

Generally, slimy stuff falls under my husband’s division of duties but for some reason I got saddled with this outing.  Since my enthusiasm was marginal at best, my intent was to merely provide a ride and moral support for my son.  However, upon our arrival,  one of the gentlemen in charge, who looked like he was sent straight by central casting with his camo vest, ruddy complexion and fragrance of chlorine-scented sea (or possibly it was Bud Light from the night prior?), offered my son the use of his more high-speed rod in order to help him reel them in faster.  My son eagerly accepted the monster rod and handed off his original pole for me to use.  At the time, I was leaning against the lifeguard chair but half-heartedly grabbed it and let it dangle in the pool while simultaneously checking email on my phone,  fully expecting and secretly hoping not to catch anything.  Then suddenly, to my utter dismay,  I felt a tug at the end of my line.  Having never fished before in my life, I spasmodically and comically, jerked it out of the water all the while listening to the soundtrack  of my son’s raucous laughter over the spectacle I was creating.

 As I pulled the fish from the sea, er, I mean pool, I could see it dancing maniacally on the end  of my line.  My lone thought at this time was how was I going to manage to get it off the hook without having to touch it?  To that end, I plopped it rather forcefully on the pool deck hoping it might magically come untethered on its own but that only  seemed to further inflame it.   It started flopping all over the deck in wild abandon, at one point  causing me to squeal as I saw it inching dangerously close to my, wait for it, Coach bag. ( I did mention that I am an amateur right?).  Thankfully Old Salt (he of the camo vest) heard the distress call of a maiden (OK, matron, but he was still charitable enough to render assistance) and ran over, unfastened the fish and threw it in our bucket.

 By this point, I was so emotionally spent that I had to relegate the rest of our allotted catching responsiblities to my son.   I did continue to stand by his side, the whole time getting distressed by the flopping fish in our bucket, feeling conflicted over whether I should start administering first aid.  Thankfully my son was able to catch the rest of our quota in relatively short order so I didn’t have to ruminate for long.

We then proceeded to the cleaning station where staff members graciously volunteered to do the dirty work for us so I eagerly surrendered  my bounty to them.  My son, however, wanted the full experience so insisted on cleaning his fish on his own.  He received instruction as he went along on the intricacies of scaling, gutting and decapitating.  At one point, he cut into one of his trout only to have what appeared to be hundreds of  shiny Omega 3 vitamins spill out of it.  My son inquired of the staff member what the "yellow stuff" was and without missing a beat or looking over to my son’s cleaning station, she offered:  “you either have a pregnant one and those are her eggs or you hit the urine line”.  Cue to the part where I vomited a little in my mouth.

As the cleaning progressed, all around us, people were talking in great enthusiasm and detail about the variety of delicious ways to prepare the trout.  And in spite of my earlier queasiness I was actually starting to feel quite hungry.  So, finally when the cleaning was complete, and our Ziploc-ed trout was ready for consumption and placed in our cooler, we left the event, anxious and eager to quench our appetites so immediately headed off to…Taco Bell!

Which also reminds me, belated Happy Cinco de Mayo!