Father and Sons

The Father and Sons outting event is also practiced in the Church in the Philippines. The Elder's quorum wanted to do something that could include everyone, but also encourage Father and Son bonding. I was excited to go fishing with my two little boys Ashton and Jonah. I was a bit worried about Jonah on this adventure as he isn't the most adventurous as the other boys, but as you can see from the picture below, he had the time of his life.



We travelled only about 25 minutes from our ward building to a group of fish ponds. Fish ponds are very common throughout all of the Philippines. They are all man made and built to raise fish for food. Most all of the fish are sold at the local markets, but this fish ponder has turned his fish ponds into a family gathering location. They have a nice grill restaurant and they will grill up your catch for you for a small fee. You can fish as long as you want and catch as many fish as you want. You just need to pay for what you catch.


There are no fishing poles at this pond. For about 25 cents we were able to rent a piece of bamboo with fishing line wrapped around it. At the end of the fish line there was a hook with a foam floater about 6 inches from the end. The bait used to catch the fish was what they called pudding. It was a brown mixture that looked like dried up pudding and bread. The fish loved it.

The ponds were stocked with a fish they called "Milk Fish". The fish live in both fresh water and ocean waters and our found mainly in the Pacific and Indian Oceans in Asia. The Milk Fish is the most popular fish food in Asia.

Jonah was so excited to fish for the first time in his life. I helped him put some pudding on the hook and casted the line for him. Jonah held on to the bamboo with eager eyes. Within about 1 minutes he had his first fish on the end of the line. I have never seen Jonah so happy as we reeled the fish in. The first thing Jonah wanted to do was to hold the fish and to talk to the fish to calm him down. Jonah was the first person in our group to catch a fish.

We fished for about 2 hours and we caught around 30 fish between the three of us. That was after throwing back about 10. Fish ponds are the best fishing adventure for little boys.

Ashton enjoyed the day as well and really didn't want to go back home. Ashton wanted to do everything himself. It took him some time learning how to put the right amount of food on the hook to keep it from falling off or being nibbled off by the fish. Although he didn't catch as much as Jonah who had the help of Dad, but he did it all by himself. I was very proud of his determination.

After the two hours we cooked up the fish for lunch. He was very delicious. It was a successful Father and Sons outting.