I should go fishing. I’ve been talking about that for quite some time but I just haven’t got around to it. My fishing gear is old and not very well maintained. My mismatched rods and rusted reels don’t look anything like the hi-tech rigs I see in the sporting goods stores these days, and I’m sure there is a current standard at the fishing hole that should be maintained.
There is nothing worse than making that first cast and having a seized bale flip over too soon, grabbing the line and sending the weight and lure off into the distance on its own. It always seems that when that happens, the ‘kerplop’ it makes is louder than a good cast and the fishermen beside you know exactly what happened. Like the first drive in golf, the first cast is all important to your day.
If you’re lake fishing, some sort of boat is a must. You never catch anything decent from the shore. A canoe, a car top boat, a float tube or anything to get you out where the fish are is a must. I’ve never trusted the float tubes because I’m scared no one would come and get me if I floated out of the lake and headed downstream.
As for motor boats, I’ve spent a lot of productive fishing time pulling on the starting cords of ancient Mercs or tired Evinrudes. I remember, as a small boy, learning a whole new vocabulary as my uncle squeezed gas line bulbs, tightened battery cables, cleaned spark plugs and adjusted carbs on that blankety-blank red and white 12 hp Johnson. After some time, he would usually exclaim, “I can’t understand it, I just did a tune-up on it last week.” Our tiller never ran right after he tuned that up either.
Then there is salmon fishing on the ocean. People come from all over the world to fish for our west coast salmon. We see plenty of pictures of them hoisting 40-pound springs into the air and yet, the number of times I’ve been out, the salmon seem to know I’m local and it will not be a big deal to be hooked by me, so they stay away.
I’ve been on a few fire department fishing derbies out in the salt chuck. Two types of people go on fire department fishing derbies. A few come to actually fish. They have all the gear and they are out at dawn and back at dusk.
The rest sit in the bar and ask, “Did you catch anything?” when they get in off the water. Spending all day being tossed to and fro in a small boat in large Pacific swells can really put a damper on a good derby weekend.
The other day I was down at Derby Reach eyeing a couple of guys in their lawn chairs, lines stretched out into the Fraser, fingers laced behind their heads enjoying the sun and the scenery. That looked pretty darn good and I recalled baiting hooks with thick slippery chunks of roe or squirming night crawlers. I heard the zip as the line peeled off out into the shimmering river. I’ve missed that.
But today, they had fresh sockeye in the grocery store and I picked one up for $15. It’s on the barbecue and almost ready.
Maybe next week I’ll go fishing. At least that’s what McGregor says.
