Fishing and Me

Lake where we camped and fished

 

Trout my husband caught that went belly up and got off the hook

 "Well, should I get out the fishing rods?" my husband asked as we were sitting on the banks of a serene mountain lake.

     "Why ruin a perfect day?"  I asked.  

My fishing experiences often remind me of the TV sitcoms where a furious, frustrated golfer marches down to the water hazard and plunks all his clubs into the pond.  TV writers must not fish.  Otherwise the sitcoms would show some episodes of frustrated anglers, full of puncture wounds from fish hooks, breaking their rods in half as they pitch them into the creek.

 I keep telling myself that I need to go fishing more often, and then I will not be so aggravated. I wonder how many hours of fishing practice I will need before I can tie my tippet to the leader of my fly rod in less than a half hour.  Will the first fly I tie on my rod always mysteriously vanish after 15 minutes of fishing, no matter how carefully I consult the Orvis knot manual as I painstakingly tie it to my tippet?  Will I ever choose the fly the fish want to bite?  Will I ever realize I have a fish on my hook quickly enough to set the hook and actually catch the fish?  Will I ever spend more time fishing than the time I spend untangling my line from patches of Canadian Thistle? I knew it was time to call it a day with fly fishing when the dog decided to mosey by my fishing rod and got the hook of my fly lodged in his ear.

After wrestling the dog to the ground so I could remove the fish hook from his ear, I decided to switch to fishing with a lure. My second cast saw my lure fly into a willow bush.  I removed it from the bush to find the fishing line bore a remarkable resemblance to a granny square, and the lure had vanished from the swivel. After cutting off all the tangled line and tying on a new swivel,  I did manage to hook about an eight inch trout.  True to form, the fish got away before I could set the hook.

So my final question is, Will fishing ever be fun or will it always be aggravating?  If I knew the answer to that question, I would know whether to throw in the towel and stick with my camera or keep trying to fish.