I looked up from my computer screen and toward the sound of the wind howling through the bare branches of the sweetgum trees outside my office window.
The granite gray sky provided a vivid contrast to the undulating brunette branches and told all watching that it was a day better spent indoors, where an extra log on the fire was warranted.
I knew, however, (not because I am wise but because I had been educated) that soon my cell phone would begin to vibrate again, announcing the arrival of another photograph of a monster spotted bass.
As usual the huge fish would be firmly held, camera-high, by one of my fishing buddies, and he would be grinning widely as if to mock my decision to stay home and write a fishing blog instead of joining them on the lake.
It was lunch time and already I’d seen half-a-dozen big-fish photos.
“The wind is your friend,” I had heard a thousand times in the past; the 1001st time, heard this morning, was ignored just as quickly.
“Brother Rick,” I whined as I gave my reason for deciding to stay home and stay warm, “I need to catch up on a mountain of paperwork; call me later if you catch any.” After all the forecast said the high temperature might not reach 40, and that rain or sleet was likely.
What kind of idiot goes fishing in weather like that?
I first asked that question about 30-years ago and have been asking it every year since. The answer every year is the same: an idiot who wants to enjoy some great fishing.
Great fishing on cold, gloomy, blustery days passed the “Myth Buster” test a long time ago.
Been there; done that…and caught fish, much to my embarrassment.
I have spent the day hanging-on-for-dear-life as whitecap after whitecap pounded the side of our boat. I have wondered where my futile casts into gale force winds have landed. I have yelled aloud that if the fish hit my lure while riding a jet ski at full throttle I probably would not feel the bite.
And despite all that self-proclaimed agony, I have, as if through some divine intervention, caught fish.
But this morning I just could not get motivated to don another layer of long underwear as I listened to meteorologist Rob Carolan recite the Access WDUN forecast. So I chickened-out…again.
“I have to get this blog written,” I reminded myself, striking the key board with renewed vigor.
“I made the right decision to stay home and be responsible,” I stuttered, as if ashamed for acting mature.
“Whirrrr! Whirrrr!” cried my cell phone, vibrating wildly in my pocket.
With intense trepidation I looked at the image. The caption beneath the bloated belly of a huge spotted bass read: “just over 5-lbs”.
Brother Rick, also in the photo, was grinning than bigger usual, as if to remind the guy sitting in front of the computer (me) that “only an idiot would fish in weather like this”.
