Let’s talk fishing!
Reading Owen’s blog post from yesterday regarding his recent fishing excursion brings back so many memories similar to fishing trips I’ve taken in the past… I guess every “fisherman” has great stories to tell, and usually, most of them don’t involve catching anything edible, or much less alive!
Last year my cousin Dale and good friend John decided to take John’s boat out for a day of catching trout on the lake. John was a very avid fisherman, as for Dale and I, let’s just say that we try… Most of Dale and my fishing trips usually end up in disaster one way or another, and usually require a first aid kit or a visit to the hospital… In fact, Dale and I are so confident in our inabilities to fish that we tell John “Wer’e bringing you down with us!”
On our drive to the lake John kept telling us about how well we would all do, and how confident he was that he could help cure our fishing jinx.
We arrive at the lake and eventually get the boat into the water. As we are floating out in the middle of the lake, we finally arrive to John’s “favorite spot” where we cast the rods in anticipation with hopes of catching the “lunkers”. In the meantime, John is so confident that we will catch something that Dale and I sat there in awe listening to “fish tales” from John’s past in the same lake for we were wanting to believe that this could happen to us too! Five minutes go by….. No bites…. Ten minutes go by…. Still no bites… Finally, after 15 minutes, John shakes his head in disbelief and mutters something to the extent that maybe “we were bad luck.”
After a couple hours of floating around, we did manage to have some success. One time as I was reeling in my line, I could have sworn I felt a tug. As I attempt to reel in my "trophy catch", I was bringing up to the surface what felt to be dead weight. There was no resistance, but it felt extremely heavy, and was coming up to the surface very slowly! “What is this thing?” I say to everyone. Everything possible started to go through my mind – could it be a big catfish? Is it a dead body? It was at that time I started to get worried. Do I really want to bring this thing to the surface? Maybe I should just cut the line! I would hate to surface a body! No way in hell I’m removing the hook from that thing! Finally about 5 minutes into it with my fishing rod about to snap, my catch is ready to break the water’s surface --- there it was in all it’s splendor…. The anchor to the boat!
We decide to pull up the anchor, since I had already surfaced it and move to another spot. We continue fishing without much luck. Then before the end of the day we decide to try our last spot. Dale and I each grab an oar to start paddling about 200 yards away. We knew we had been fishing for awhile and were somewhat tired. We were paddling away and it seemed to take forever to get to our spot! As soon as we arrive awhile later, John reminds us to toss the anchor over to keep us from drifting. As Dale and I look over the boat to find the big deadweight, I follow the line tied to the boat as it goes into the water. We had never pulled the anchor up! This is why we were paddling so slow. John almost fell off the boat from laughing so hard, and Dale and I looked at each other like two idiots each wanting to laugh, but feeling very stupid.
Since that day, we’ve been invited to go fishing with John merely to provide entertainment. What can we say? Next time though, I’m hooking up an Xcam to record our excursion. If anything, we may not have caught the lunker we wanted, but we did manage to catch a few laughs.
Comments
Good stuff - Yeah I have a lot more; The time my dad "accidently" knocked me in the river. The time my friend had his hat removed by a flying hook. My friends running out of gas twice - in one day. The list goes on, I wonder why we all do it.
Posted by: Owen | August 23, 2006 04:45 PM
Same here Owen.. I could blog forever on fishing....
*The time I actually had to go to the hospital to have a hook removed... (not as bad as Warren in the movie Something About Mary, but pretty close!)
*The time i was fishing with a friend, and she caught a fish and beat it so silly she looked like a serial killer holding a stick all covered in fish blood while breathing heavy.. I was too scared to be around her after that.
*The time I caught a duck....
*Then another time I caught a seagull...
The list goes on and on... and on... and on.... hehe.. i've got a ton more!
I love fishing! =)
Posted by: Mike | August 23, 2006 05:13 PM
Hello Mike,
Fishing with you and Dale has been great. Besides it's not the size of the fish, the numbers, or the freqency, but the time you spend fising. Whether you catch a fish or not is really just icing on the proverbial fishing cake. At least your fathers know now why you didn't join the the navy.
John
Posted by: John | August 24, 2006 11:12 PM
haha. How true John.
You know what? If I had to play the role of Tom Hanks in that move Castaway, I wouldn't of made it very far, and the movie would have been over pretty soon!
By the way, I like how you backtrack now in your comments about us being able to catch fish... Thanks for the Vote of Confidence Dr. John! haha... *wink*
Posted by: Mike | August 25, 2006 09:22 AM