Monday, December 03, 2007
Days Of Future Flatus
Interesting...seems Google can't do this much better than the old Blogspot people did. They claim I made a post on Dec. 30th of last year, when the last one I can find is from November 25th.
There's a new year coming! Feeling my age, I think if I make a resolution this year (some years I do, some I don't), it's going to be to get it together and start making the rest of my life count for something. Live, love, laugh, learn.
Maybe other things, for instance, FISHING.
Yes, indeed. I'm going to fish with a frequency and an intensity that no completely sane person would display. I'm going to learn how to catch every bloody thing in the saltwater rivers and the ocean around here. I'm going to photograph a lot of them, as well as take notes on what I did and when I did it to catch the types I want to catch again.
I've got to get past this nickname of Captain Catfish. Granted, I catch dozens of the damn things. But anybody that can't catch catfish in east central Florida is a sad fisherperson. Before I became too environmentally aware to indulge in such atrocities, I once flipped a lit cigarette butt into the Banana River, and a catfish ate it.
Trout Terror, Flounder Pounder, Snapper Slayer, all cool nicknames. But Captain Catfish? Egad. Even Sergeant Stingray would be an improvement over that. I catch a ton of those things, too, but nobody seems to notice.
I suppose it could be worse. The other fish I've completely mastered the techniques to catch is pigfish. I'll outcatch anybody who wants pigfish. However, the potential nicknames...no thanks.
No matter what, I shall endeavor to persevere. I'll haul my lazy butt out of bed before dawn, and have bait in the water before the sky begins to lighten. I'll fish when it's raining. I'll fish when it's so cold I can't wear my beloved flip-flops. I'll fish when all the known predictors say nothing will bite. I'll fish from shore. I'll fish from my boats. I'll fish from other peoples' boats, from docks, bridges, canal banks and piers. I'll use my poles that are so sensitive they twitch when a fish thinks about biting, I'll use big heavy rigs strong enough to haul sharks in, and everything in between. I'll use live bait, cut bait, thawing bait, artificial lures, homemade lures. I'll use lights, bait treatments, sonic attractors.
Sane people will wonder about this single-minded drive to outwit a creature with a brain smaller than the end of ones' pinkie finger.
Fishing folk will understand.
