The Great Goby Haul

According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the goby fish has become "increasingly common in the state's streams and lakes during the last decade." According to me and my personal experience, THE GOBY IS TAKING OVER THE DAMN WORLD.

Our first family encounter with a goby was one that A. brought back from Lake Ontario in 2014. So it wasn't even in our lake. That was when we learned that while a goby will hit a worm with lightning speed in a lake, its voracious appetite disappears in captivity and it won't eat anything. They just die. Always. But they're not supposed to be returned to the water, because they're an invasive, and they can't be used for bait, so most people just kill them and chuck 'em right on the dock or beach they're fishing on for the gulls.

Not A., though. Oh no. He can't resist the pleading of his children to keep every blessed goby they catch. Which is why he kept the one that Cubby caught in our lake at the village dock last summer, even though he knew it would die.

It did. They always do.

We went fishing at the village dock on Sunday. Both Cubby and Charlie have their own poles now, and it was like some kind of cable fishing show. "FISH ON!" over and over. Except it was always, always a goby that was on. They just kept catching them, and A., indulgent father that he is, kept putting them in a bucket of water.

In the end, we came home with ten gobies in a bucket. Yes, of course we came home with them. A. had some vague idea that he could salt them for trapping bait, and of course Cubby and Charlie wanted to bring them home, so home they came.

I knew this wouldn't end well. Sure enough, I took the lid off the bucket yesterday morning to find all ten gobies an unhealthy shade of gray and floating sideways in their bucket grave, all very dead.

I made the executive decision to not save them for any kind of bait preservation and instead dumped the disgusting bucket into the gully.

Next time, I'm really going to put my foot down about any gobies coming home with us. It's getting ridiculous. Invasives, indeed.