Cruelty Free Fishing

Raven is competent at most things and does have some genuine experience as a fisherwoman under her belt so when she offered to get me started with my angling career, I accepted with grace.

I’ve had all the gear for some months now; since the beginning of last winter in fact. However as I’ve explained, standing up to me goolies in ice water doesn’t appeal and I’ve been depressingly busy for the last few weekends so here we are at the end of May and I’ve yet to get the stuff wet. The traditional holiday weekend rain didn’t appear to be materializing and the lake was still open despite a brief-but-nasty local wildfire so after a quick lunch, I loaded rod, reel, tackle box, fishing vest, cooler and Wiley the dog into the car and set off for Raven’s house.

The first step was to load line onto reel and as I don’t recall experiencing any challenges loading line onto reel the last time I owned a fishing rod, some (clears throat) years ago; I suspect it was already on when I bought it. I assumed this would be easy but experienced my first pang of concern when Raven’s SO, ‘storm took one look and said.

"Oh, you’ve bought one of those reels."

By "one of those reels" I learned he meant "open faced reels" whereby the line is wound onto the spindle with the aid of a wee hinged bar called a bail. A manly reel, as opposed to a "closed faced reel" where everything is enclosed – the type favored by amateurs and 7-year old girls.

One of those reels or not, we pushed on, emboldened by the assistance of the instruction book.

"Attach line to reel" it said. Well there you go – can’t get much more straightforward than that. So, attach line to reel we did and in no time Raven was winding furiously while I unrolled yard after yard of nylon thread from the spool. Everything was going swimmingly until we made the mistake of stopping to check our progress and for no reason at all, the line decided to spring back off the reel at a speed much greater than it had gone on. In less time than it takes to type, Raven was holding an armful of tangled twine and looking bewildered.

No matter, this gave me the chance to try out another piece of new equipment; a rather nifty pair of folding scissors and before long we had the snarl trimmed off.

"Before you unwind the remaining line and start over, this might be a good time to practice casting." Suggested ‘storm helpfully.

Good idea that, so after fastening a weight to the business end, we all made our way down off the deck to the open driveway.

"Watch me get it stuck in a tree now." I said; joking of course. The nearest tree was 50 feet away and obviously out of range. So, it was with some surprise I saw the line soar into its highest branches and secure itself there forever. Or at least, until the tree falls over for no amount of pulling, yanking or twisting would free the damn thing. I suspect some squirrel is still massaging the back of its head and wondering "What the hell was that?"

The day was slipping away but eventually we had a good length of line on the reel, along with a new weight and a hook and were bowling up the road to the lake. Quite sensibly, ‘storm decided to avoid any further involvement so it was just me, Wiley, Raven and of course, the fish. And most of the population of Colorado. Not only was most of the shoreline occupied, these people looked like they knew what they were doing. Anxious to find a spot where we could screw up without anyone noticing, we selected a place between the family with toddlers (no competition there) and the group of old folks with tons of gear and professional looking hats (maybe they would take pity and show us how to get started).

My first cast was a beaut. Way, way out over the lake almost beaning a duck in the process. You would think after a cast like that the fish would have been climbing over themselves to jump on the hook, but no, reeling in the line revealed that all I had caught was some straggly looking weed, which I suspect stuck just near the shore. Not to worry, I drew back and cast again. And again. And again. No fish.

As it turned out, that was the least of our worries. This darn line was making it clear it had no intention of remaining on the reel any longer than it had to and whenever the bail was open, it would spiral off into a ball of confusion. I eventually learned the art of snapping the bail closed as soon as the cast was complete, but not before several yards of line had sprung off and made friends with the nearby bushes. What a royal pain in the patoot that turned out to be and I was grateful to have Raven there to help me untangle things. I was less grateful to have Wiley there because the moment she saw us distracted, she would jump up and hop into the lake. She doesn’t smell too good at the best of times and wet she’s insufferable so we spent a lot of time yelling and causing chaos while the other anglers attempted to ignore us.

After a while you begin to wonder if you really want to catch a fish anyway. Let’s face it; fish are rather ugly creatures. It’s one thing if you're scuba diving on some tropical reef where they’re all psychedelically colored and cool looking, but their cold water cousins tend to have expressions that are invariably sour or grumpy looking. That or just plain angry. Maybe somebody should check why that is.

So we cast, and reeled in, cast and reeled in, untangled, cursed at the dog, tripped over and dropped things for the rest of the afternoon in blissful contentment. Remember the toddlers and the old folks? They spent their time reeling in fish after fish, with the youngters holding the lead until the end. Us? Well, we caught a lot of weeds, lost a lot of bait, accidentally threw the rod in the water on one cast and snarled somebody else’s line on another. Not the most successful fishing trip ever.

But who cares. There was leftover shepherd’s pie for tea.