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I may have jinxed myself. I was so excited about the fishing season starting that I may have over done my exuberance. It has been proven by nine out of ten fishermen that premature exuberance will ensure an empty creel. 

On my last outing things had gotten so bad that I even wondered, almost out loud, “Is the old saying that fishing is better than working possibly untrue?” There I was tying on another leader and jig, when I started wondering what was going on at work. Then I started thinking of the chores that I could be doing at the farm rather than fishing. Really, it was a terrible moment, a unique and once believed impossible thought. It’s tough to admit but for a moment, while fishing, I thought perhaps things would be more fun at work…and I’m not a rodeo clown. 

I didn’t want to be the first guy to admit that perhaps we weren’t having fun. Then, Muddy once again stepped in to save me. “#$$^&it”, he exclaimed. “That’s it, I’m going to shore.” Then he stormed back up the bank and sat on a log. I don’t know why we weren’t having fun. We’d been wading through the fast and muddy waters for hours. The air temperature was in the high thirties and the wind was howling down the river and blasting us. My hands were raw from the wet and cold and re-tying line after line. While re-tying, the loose ends of the line would blow around the tip of the rod, so then you had to untangle your mainline to cast again. Often before a third cast, we’d snag again and break off another leader, if lucky. Sometimes we lost the whole rig. Then we had to start all over again with the re-tying. It’s almost dollar a rig by the way and we were going through about thirty rigs a day. 

At that point, Muddy claimed he had snagged and re-tied on eight of his last ten casts. I had a slightly better percentage but only because I was in a slightly different spot. However, the fish were running somewhat. We each had caught a walleye and a local guy upstream, who was also often busy re-tying, was closing in on a limit. My optimism was high, but you feel bad when your buddy is behind you sitting on the bank. You really feel bad when he is just watching you tie on another rig that you are happy you got away with three casts before losing the last one. 

That’s when it dawned on me that I may be committing a blasphemy by actually admitting that, maybe, I’d rather be at work. So, I gave up and went back up the bank to Muddy and we agreed to try another spot but had the same result, and then another with still the same result. 

Not to be outdone by a lack of fun, we came back to the river the next morning. This time however, we did not race to get our waders on. We watched the river and other anglers; it seemed little had changed. I turned to my buddy and decided it was my turn to take the pressure off. “Hey, Muddy, what do you say we mosey the scenic way back to your place and you show me how to split a beehive?” He could hardly contain his excitement, “Really? Well, yeah, that sounds like a good idea!”  So that’s just what we did. 

Now in the scheme of things, we did have fun while fishing. I’d rather be back there than doing a lot of other things but when you go to a destination for an event, you expect the event to occur. If it doesn’t, I believe it can be forgiven if you get skunked for two days. The real test will be if we fish next year. We will, it won’t be there, but it will be somewhere because even bad fishing is still fishing but you’d still like the fish to be involved.  

See you along the stream