Soon the leaves will be gone from the trees in my backyard, and I will be able to see a sliver of the neighborhood pond from my screened porch writing perch. These days, that’s about as close as I’ll make it to the pond. Despite loving the outdoors, I’ve never been much of a fisherman. I enjoyed it as a kid, but I was never too successful at it. Some people swear by fishing as a way to relax, but I’m not so sure. Maybe I put too much emphasis on my results or lack thereof.
The pond circa 2006
When we moved into our current house fourteen years ago, I had hopes of changing my fishing luck in the new pond, with it being so close. The kids were much younger, and I’d take them over there to cast a few lines every now and then. This wasn’t exactly relaxing, either. Baiting hooks and untangling lures seemed to be my role in these adventures.
Unfortunately, if the kids were expecting to learn how to catch fish from me, they ended up sorely disappointed. The only fish we could catch were small bream and only if we used live worms. At the same time, while we were catching six-ounce breams, a guy from up the street would be hauling in five-pound largemouth bass on the other side of the pond. Even if I moved to that side when he left, I never caught a bass.
Despite being bass-less I did eventually discover, though, that if you hooked a good size bream on your daughter’s pink Disney princess rod, then it felt like you were fighting a monster. Turns out that’s pretty fun. It’s all about adapting, I guess.
Tonight, though, I’m giving the whole fishing as relaxing one more try (at least metaphorically) and putting up my virtual gone fishing sign. Unfortunately, the original blog post I intended and worked on for this week isn’t quite ready. While my family might accuse me of trying to make things too perfect, that just isn’t the case this time. I’m trying a couple of new things and there’s a bit of a learning curve. I could probably stay up late tonight and push it on to the finish line, but I’m tired and need a little break. Hopefully, next week you’ll enjoy the results of my short fishing detour.
Hope you have a Happy Halloween and don’t forget to set your clocks back this weekend.
Thanks for reading,
PS. This weekend is a full moon, Halloween and it is still 2020. What could possibly go wrong?
