Fish Bait

Fishing is a crazy sport at the best of times, a sport that involves next to no physical effort, almost zero talent, and only asks that you match wits with an opponent possessing the mental faculties of the average turnip (though turnips refuse to eat worms, so perhaps the analogy is a tad optimistic). Fishing is like peeing in a toilet; just keep a steady hand and let nature take care of the rest. It should be easy. There should not be a food shortage.

Well, I spent last week fishing, and guess what? I missed the toilet.

And not for the first time, either (I mean the fishing, not the toilet). It's expected and planned for, like death, taxes, or another season of The Simpsons. I take a ungodly amount of food whenever I engage in this "sport," knowing that the only fish I'm liable to eat are the ones Captain Highliner was nice enough to pack for me in easy to microwave containers. If I were ever faced with hunting down my own food, I'd be eating my fellow campers long before I ever managed to land a fish, so it only seems neighbourly to pack a big cooler.

Yet, despite many trips that indicate I have the fishing skills of a limbless otter who's lost his dentures, I still insist on hopping in a boat, impaling at least a dozen worms a day, staying out until either the sun goes down or the gas runs out, and returning with nothing more than a serious case of boat-bench-inflicted hemorrhoids. And if you ever want to know why they say the second favourite pastime of fishermen is drinking, it's because they all have hemorrhoids, and never catch any fish.

What's worse is that the fish are starting to figure this out, being the clever turnips that they are, and have taken to tormenting me whenever I'm out. Usually this involves nibbling and tugging on my hook, methodically cleaning away the worm while they give me cardiac seizure-inducing levels of excitement. They'll even start playing dueling hooks with however many might be over at the time, bobbers bouncing up and down in rhythm, getting everyone in the boat wound up and going for the gaff hooks thinking that Moby Dick has taken to eating worms

But this year was something new, a level of fishing torment that almost had me wondering whether someone had thrown a fifty-million-volt toaster into the lake. The fish were not just jumping; they were leaping, pirouetting, and somersaulting all around the boat. And at the risk of sounding like your great-uncle who used to talk about fighting man-eating trout with his bare hands, these fish were BIG. These were fish that made you wonder whether you should have brought a shotgun instead of a fishing rod.

And they flaunted themselves shamelessly, showing you their wares and daring you to put a filleting knife between your teeth and dive in after them. It went on for hours, them jumping twenty feet away, us casting furiously after them with not so much as a nibble...though one of them thought it would be fun to belly-flop on my bobber.

I don't need to tell you there is nothing worse than a smart-assed fish.

Soon we were joined by half the fishing population of the lake, a flotilla of men and women playing, casting, trolling, and swearing all around us, the stupidity having not only crossed gender lines, but those of age, race, and from the looks of some of those boats, at least three tax classes. One guy got so frustrated he threw his net in the water, perhaps hoping the fish would obligingly jump into it for him.

They laughed at us, is what they did.

Well, not next year, my friends. This has gone far enough. There will be no new fancy lures, no high-tech sonar, no expensive trolling gear, and certainly no early morning climbs out of my sleeping bag to bob around in the water and be scoffed at by aquatic fauna that have baited me for far too long.

So if you're up at the cottage next year and hear a very loud explosion, you can relax. It's just me fishing.