My God Answers Prayer

34 1/4", 13 pounds of Lake Trout from Lake Michigan this morning!!! FISH ON!!!


I almost stayed in bed this morning...a dear, dear man from our church had invited Tim fishing out on the lake yesterday. Tim mentioned how much I would enjoy the experience..
The dramamine was doing it's darndest to turn me into a zombie, but after a fun excursion to the "head" to empty my bladder, I felt better.
Nothing was happening. I spoke outloud, "Lord God, please send us some fish.." and I would have been ok if we had nothing, but this guy was trying SO hard to make it memorable you know?
Then I saw the tip of the rod jiggle, like crazy and said, "Hey, guys, there's a fish on !"
Tim took that one.
Nice 17 inch salmon. The fun begins. Net, gloves, pliers, all in places they had to be dug out of or found or caught on some thing. It was comical to me. I carefully rubbed my forefinger along the edge of the fish's mouth to feel it's teeth.. they were sharp. Guess I should've expected that but I had to do it.

Then our guide's rod starts dipping up and down and wow whee, I say again, "Guys, there's a fish on this too!!"
Dan takes the rod and starts his battle, struggle, epic whatever you call it, and he kept saying,
"I think it's a log. Or maybe a piece of junk. It doesn't feel like a fish."

I'm thinking, "WHAT?? It's a f-i-s-h!!!"

Finally after 20 epic minutes, we saw this silver flash coming to the surface. For a second, I thought maybe it was a piece of junk like a road sign--- how crazy is that--but our eyes beheld a ginormous, huge fish!!!!

I quickly discovered that these Guys don't get excited but I'm yelling, WOW WHEE, WOO HOO, FISH ON..!!!!!!!!!
they just started their net dance and landed the monster.
I'm pumpin my arms, doing a little fishy victory dance and overall, pretty excited!! :-)

The nifty line to this story is that we got it measured in the cleaning station(32" we thought), some guy told us it was illegal. That we could only keep lake trout between 20-25" and he understood (wink, wink), but the DNR lady was a real stickler for rules. Said if he lands those big ones, by the time they get to the surface, they're all played out, he releases them to be "legal" and then swings around and nabs them when they go belly up.

Talk about deflated. We'd taken pictures. Made phone calls.
Now we're illegal??
Gee whiz...
Then I said out loud, "Why would God answer a prayer with an illegal fish??"
We kept it in the cooler and headed home. What else were we supposed to do?
On the way ,Tim and I grabbed a copy of the regs.
It said "The minimum size limit for lake trout shall be 20" and the maximum size limit shall be 25"
except that the daily possession limit may include no more than one (1) lake trout 34" or greater."
Well the guy at the station didn't mention this little tidbit of info---

We measured it at home. With a measuring tape, and no, we didn't cheat. Honest!
Length, 34 1/4"!!!!


So I guess the morale to the story is: when you ask God for something, do not doubt His provision!!

"But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect anything from the Lord, being a double minded man, unstable in all his ways, but let the brother of humble circumstances glory is his high position

and let the rich man glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass, he will pass away."

James 1:6-9

Fish on!!

Bonnie