A bad day of fishing is always better than a good day of school or work.
[gee, did I say that?] My youngest son Nate use to skip school to go fishing both with me and without me. He owned his first 2 boats before he bought a car. When he got his license he use to wait til I went to work and then would tow his boat to the river with my tow vehicle and I always heard about all the days I was spending at Red Wing fishing cause my tow vehicle then, a blue Ford Tempo, was always seen at Colvil Park ramp.
Then one time, back when Steve Vick [Everts Resort Manager], worked for the DNR he saw me pulling my boat out of the water one day and said ”I see you are using Nates car” when I was really using my car. I had a deal set up with the teachers that every Friday they would send home a report that all Nates work was done or else he wasn’t fishing that weekend.
Nate spent alot of time fishing instead of hanging around with his ”old” friends who were drinking and using dope so as long as he chose to stay away from them [he even switched schools to get away from them] and was hooked on fishing only and his school work was done I never complained too much about fishing on school time.
Maybe not the best thing for a Dad to do but it kept him out of trouble and besides his Dad was hooked on fishing too so I couldn’t help myself.
Fishing, the best darn addiction around.
And ya know, when it comes to fishing I’m still a kid. Still spend alot more money on boats than I do cars, more on fishing equipement than on household things, all vacation days are fishing ones. Will I ever grow up? NOT! 
Thanks, Bill