BonnerSprings.com

Before long it will be time for warm-weather pursuits again. I might putter in the garden, play a little golf or something. I probably won’t go fishing.

The truth is, after a lifetime of failure and frustration, I’ve sort of given up on fishing. I don’t want you to think that I didn’t give it a fair chance, though. It took me about 45 years or so, starting from the time I was about 12, to finally hang it up.

I’ve never known anyone who has fished so much with so little success. And the crazy part is, I always liked it. I always liked being in the outdoors, being out on the water.

I’ve fished all over Kansas and Missouri, down into Arkansas, and in the high mountains of Colorado and even made two trips to the North Woods of Canada – all with precious little to show for it.

The trips to Canada were sort of typical of my experience. I made the first trip at 14 years of age when I was in Explorer Scouts.

For weeks, months before we got there, I dreamed of all the fish I’d catch. And so when I finally got there, after a spring and summer of newspaper drives and car washes and auctions and I don’t remember what all to raise the money for the trip, I was ready. I had my rod and reel and a small tackle box chuck-full of Daredevles and spinners and all the necessary appurtenances.

And so I fished. And I fished. One day passed, two days, three. Others around me caught fish, but not I, not even a bite. One kid caught a 20-pound northern pike, another a big lake trout. Still I fished. I didn’t give up.

Finally, on about the seventh day I caught a smallmouth bass. It wasn’t big —a pound or so, maybe a little more — but it fought mightily despite its small stature and I was thrilled.

And now, I thought, with the ice broken, so to speak, I’ll finally be able to just relax and catch some fish. Man, this was living!

There were three of us in the canoe. My friend Ken was up in the bow and I was paddling in the stern, with my fishing rod sort of hanging over the side. Another kid named Greg was seated in the center, and he was casting around as we paddled back into a cove to try the waters there. I noticed that, as he cast, his lure was coming pretty close to mine so I asked him to take care not to snag my rig as he was casting. Don’t worry, he said. We paddled on into the cove.

Within seconds I heard this scraping noise, and I turned to look just in time to see the handle of my rod slip beneath the water. Rather than killing Greg, the water was shallow there — six feet or so — I spent the next 30 minutes diving, trying to find my rod and reel. I obviously wasn’t looking in the right place, though, so that was the end of my fishing on that trip.

Several years later, when I was just 21, my younger brother was going on the same trip. I hadn’t planned to go but at the last minute, one of the dads had to cancel. They needed another adult and they asked me, so I went along as an adult leader with about a dozen older boys, mostly 15 or 16.

This time I was loaded for bear, and I fished assiduously for all nine days we were on the trail. The result? I caught two northerns, each about 24 inches long. A bass or a trout at 24 inches in length would be a pretty good-sized fish, but a northern has to get up around 28 inches or so before he develops any girth. A 24-inch northern pike resembles nothing so much as a snake, or an eel.

Despite those early setbacks, I kept at it for years. Until finally, about 15 years ago, I got rid of my tackle. At the end, I was trying to fish for bass with flies – again, with very little success. From time to time I think of taking it up again, but then I ask myself: Who needs the aggravation?

Comments