Today marked a milestone for Reel Blessed chapter of Fishing’s Future. We held our first ever fishing camp in Romania. Being our first international event we had a few hiccups, but we managed to work through them and the kids had a great time. At the end of the day the lifelong memories were made for these kids is what it is all about.

Tania and I hit the ground running in Romania. We arrived at our hotel, The Berg, about 8:00 pm. After over 24 hours of travel, we were exhausted but we had so much to do to get ready for our fish camp the next morning. The full team ate dinner at the restaurant and had our meeting while eating, and we finally got into our room about 10:00 pm.

With our event starting at 8:00 am, we had to get the 30 rods/reels unpacked and put together. It was just after midnight when we were able to put our heads on the pillows and fall asleep.

6:00 am arrived too early for Tania and I so we hit the snooze once or twice, I don’t recall to be honest. We woke up and got ready to meet Greg and the kids. We were very excited as we knew how much joy we would be bringing to the kids.

Unfortunately, I had a bout of stomach trouble in the morning, which made the preparations a bit more challenging. It was around 7:30 am when we took all the fishing equipment to the van to get it loaded. While we were waiting for the vans with the kids to arrive, I had to run to the restroom again. At this point I did take an Imodium as we were not sure of the facilities we would have while fishing.

Our fishing camp was held at Complex Agrement Bellavi, a popular resort known for its well-stocked carp pond and beautiful surroundings. The pond is stocked with four different species of large carp and people come from all over to fish this pond. They have rooms around the one shoreline of the pond so if you were staying there, you didn’t have far to go fishing.

We had planned to hold our camp from 8:00 am to noon; however, the night before I told Greg that once we start fishing, we sometimes end the fishing portion of are camp early. Depending on how the fishing is going and how much the kids are enjoying it. If it is really hot and the fish aren’t biting, we want to stop the event before the kids lose interest.

We arrived at the pond about 8:30 am. The kids got super excited when they saw the fishing rods/reels as well as all the fishing equipment we were giving them. As always, we opened in prayer and then handed out the rods/reels to get up to teach the kids how to cast. Our second challenge was the language barrier, which made it difficult to explain how to use the rods and reels properly. The kids kept switching the lever, causing the reels to back-reel and tangle.

It was about 9:00 am when we had everyone’s rod/reel set up and we started fishing. Tania and I spent the next hour helping the kids untangle their lines and bait their hooks. We were using power bait, crappie bait nibbles, gulp blood worms and corn. Even though we saw many fish, they didn’t like any of the baits we had. One of the more interesting things I saw was the frogs were very aggressive and they would swim out of their way to attack the bobbers. The kids got a kick out watching the frog try to eat the bobber.

About 11:00 am we called all the kids together and had them all go back to clean up the area, while Tania and I started to gather all the equipment. Once we had all the kids back we passed out tootsie pops and then we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up so we could meet the rest of the team at noon for lunch.

Despite the hiccups and not catching any fish, the experience was truly rewarding. The kids had a great time, and the joy and memories created made the event special.