When I buy flies, spinners, swimbaits or spoons, I know it’s not going to be a lifelong relationship.
Somewhere along the line I am going to break that fly off, or lose the spinner in a log or around a rock. It’s an inevitability that comes with fishing.
There are more intimate inevitabilities that come with all sports. Some dudes only bank in 3-pointers, always forget food, get sick, forget toilet paper, never volunteer to drive.
I draw blood.
However, I never really expect, or want, to verify this inevitability. When I bought a couple new lures Saturday morning, I didn’t picture the day I would lose the new investment. What fisherman does that?
I certainly did not imagine what circumstances would lead me to bleed, it just wouldn’t be a fishing trip if it didn’t happen.
Since the shore at New Melones is roughly a quarter-mile from where it was, Saturday’s fishing trip doubled as a leg work out. I was stoked.
Not only could I put a long week of school and basketball in my rear view, but I’d get a little workout as well.
I found a little cove with some nice cover, plopped my gear down on the incline, dug out a little space for my coffee, tied on a neon swimbait and hit the cover. In fact, I looped the lure around the cover.
I didn’t move until the brand new $8 ornament stopped swinging from the branch of what looked like a partially submerged Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
I had owned the thing for all of two hours, and before I could even entice a fish with it, I had to cut the line. It had never even touched water, now it was lost. Well not really lost, I could see it out there, smiling at me, suspended in the air but I had no means to retrieve it.
It wouldn’t be a fishing trip if I didn’t lose a lure.
I’ve always wondered what happens to all those lures. My buddies and I spent warm late spring afternoons lure-diving in the Klawock River back home.
We’d swim around picking up dozens of spinners then stand in the sun for a few minutes to stave off hypothermia before diving back in. We rarely found our own though, which never made sense.
We were sure that no one had spent more time on the shores, or been fouled up on those trick rocks and branches more than us, yet I never located my favorite spinners.
A 13-inch rainbow helped dissolve my wasteful feelings after cutting the line to my first cast.
Humility usually follows happiness, and within minutes a log salmon bit.
I let the line go slack and traversed the steep grade parallel to the shore to hopefully unsnag my line by yanking it from a different angle. The delicately settled rocks gave under my feet. I fell and one of the edges sliced my right pointer finger. It wouldn’t be a fishing trip if I didn’t draw blood.
I figured I was about 10 feet from a decent rescue spot, in my way of course was a downed tree. Straddling the log, my feet slid again. It occurred to me that one day I wanted to have children, but it was the second $8 lure that was in peril.
I pressed on without incident, and lost the lure. I made my way back to my gear, just in time to fall down and shave a couple layers of skin from my wrist.
Wouldn’t be a fishing trip …
To contact Jeff Lund, e-mail aklund21@gmail.com.
Somewhere along the line I am going to break that fly off, or lose the spinner in a log or around a rock. It’s an inevitability that comes with fishing.
There are more intimate inevitabilities that come with all sports. Some dudes only bank in 3-pointers, always forget food, get sick, forget toilet paper, never volunteer to drive.
I draw blood.
However, I never really expect, or want, to verify this inevitability. When I bought a couple new lures Saturday morning, I didn’t picture the day I would lose the new investment. What fisherman does that?
I certainly did not imagine what circumstances would lead me to bleed, it just wouldn’t be a fishing trip if it didn’t happen.
Since the shore at New Melones is roughly a quarter-mile from where it was, Saturday’s fishing trip doubled as a leg work out. I was stoked.
Not only could I put a long week of school and basketball in my rear view, but I’d get a little workout as well.
I found a little cove with some nice cover, plopped my gear down on the incline, dug out a little space for my coffee, tied on a neon swimbait and hit the cover. In fact, I looped the lure around the cover.
I didn’t move until the brand new $8 ornament stopped swinging from the branch of what looked like a partially submerged Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
I had owned the thing for all of two hours, and before I could even entice a fish with it, I had to cut the line. It had never even touched water, now it was lost. Well not really lost, I could see it out there, smiling at me, suspended in the air but I had no means to retrieve it.
It wouldn’t be a fishing trip if I didn’t lose a lure.
I’ve always wondered what happens to all those lures. My buddies and I spent warm late spring afternoons lure-diving in the Klawock River back home.
We’d swim around picking up dozens of spinners then stand in the sun for a few minutes to stave off hypothermia before diving back in. We rarely found our own though, which never made sense.
We were sure that no one had spent more time on the shores, or been fouled up on those trick rocks and branches more than us, yet I never located my favorite spinners.
A 13-inch rainbow helped dissolve my wasteful feelings after cutting the line to my first cast.
Humility usually follows happiness, and within minutes a log salmon bit.
I let the line go slack and traversed the steep grade parallel to the shore to hopefully unsnag my line by yanking it from a different angle. The delicately settled rocks gave under my feet. I fell and one of the edges sliced my right pointer finger. It wouldn’t be a fishing trip if I didn’t draw blood.
I figured I was about 10 feet from a decent rescue spot, in my way of course was a downed tree. Straddling the log, my feet slid again. It occurred to me that one day I wanted to have children, but it was the second $8 lure that was in peril.
I pressed on without incident, and lost the lure. I made my way back to my gear, just in time to fall down and shave a couple layers of skin from my wrist.
Wouldn’t be a fishing trip …
To contact Jeff Lund, e-mail aklund21@gmail.com.
