No, I did not catch the clap.

Very funny, though.

To sum up, because I'm sure you're dying to know... here is the summation of the things i caught:

sunfish: 4

trout: 0 (the only trout available to be caught were lake trout, and they live quite deep...)

large mouth bass: 2 that counted. several more that were so tiny that when my sister tried to lip them to remove the hook, her thumb could barely fit into its mouth.

small mouth bass: several, but 3 nice ones. including one caught while sitting indian style on the back of my sister's boat. which, if you've ever tried hooking and fighting a nice bass while seated in a fashion where you could feasibly fall in after the fish, you know what a challenge this is.

rock bass: a half dozen or so. spiny little creatures.

toothy creatures: too many! "Dad, can you take this off the hook?" several northern pike and several more pickerel. and sightings of alligator gar and bowfin. i should add that these sightings were promptly followed by anonymous and i promptly removing our lures from the water.

perch: funny story about the perch. i actually took off several, but when i think about the fish sperm on my hands after taking one off, it's possible i had millions of potential perch in/on my hands. (for the record, this was not my fish, it was anonymous' fish that i was removing when it... unloaded.) i haven't been tested, but one assumes that it was not carrying the clap or any other STD that a human could possibly get by um.. handling perch spunk.

clams: 7. i have no idea how i managed to catch so many. they do not sit on the ground. they float. so imagine my surprise when i caught one after another using my various lures. it's a talent, passed on to me by my mother.

sunburn: absolutely! across my nose and face, and a bit on my forearms. most of this has faded, but i am peeling about the nose and cheek.

the desire to have children: this waned in and out. holding baby e when he was asleep on the boat: yes. watching the babies run all over while their parents tried to keep up: no. watching them be fascinated by things like their belly buttons, elbows and a deflated balloon: yes. watching them try to launch themselves downhill: no.

we got back late yesterday and today i returned to work, so naturally, i'm tired and about to head to bed. but fishing, and more importantly, the first all family vacation (mom and dad, sisters with husbands and babies and me and my own husband) was relatively pain free. minus of course, the accidentally hooking suffered by anonymous, the lure to the back of the head j suffered at the hands of my dad, and the lure to the stomach he suffered at the hands of my mom -- but other than that... good times.