Bloggin' Umholtz

Fishin With The Women Folk � Part Two

         Of course, the first person of the female persuasion I remember fishing with was my Mom. Oh, all right, and my older sister, I suppose we’ll have to include HER. Mostly what I remember was sitting on the worm can eating a Lebanon bologna sandwish and watching as Mom caught the biggest fish and Pop fished farther and farther away from us; mostly to get away fom the incessant whining of my sister. “Look, I found a dead fish. What’s that thing? Mom, Dad, Joseph’s eating the Fisher cookies! Lets go skip rocks. Dad! Mom caught another fish and it’s a whopper!” In all fairness to my sister she did prove to be useful at times. When Pop would snag his line, she’d swim out and unsnag it for him and she’d…she’d…well, I’m sure she did other things that were useful also, though quite frankly I don’t remember.

         Honest, Sis, I do love you. Luckily, Pop never taught her how to shoot.

         There came a time when I was old enough to be Pop’s fishing buddy without being chaperoned by Mom and Sis. Sis mostly lost interest in fishing at that point having discovered…boys. Just shows how smart she was. Most boys I knew just wanted to talk…fishin. Those were the blissful years. Pop and me fishing… Pop and me hunting… Pop and me…Pop and me. No women folk. It lasted a long time, twenty years or so. The sun shone, the sky was blue, the Yoo-hoo was cold and the fish were biting all the time…at least that’s the way I remember it.

         And the women folk left us alone. I didn’t have occasion to fish again with one until I had left home and was on my own. Ironically I traveled back home to do it. A buddy of mine was dating a girl named Betty. The name is changed to protect me. Now Betty had never been fishing before but wanted to impress my buddy. Let’s call him George. George and I and another friend, we’ll call him Bubba, had planned a fishing trip with Pop to the Delaware River for shad one spring weekend. We convened at my folks house. George brought Betty. Shad fishing is not the best way to initiate a novice into fishing. See my blog from a week or so ago if you want to understand why. As luck would have it there had been some real heavy storms to the east and the river was too high to fish. Enter plan B. Crappie fishing on a local reservoir. Pop and Bubba went in one boat. George, Betty and I went in the other. In our separate boats Pop and I tried to pattern the crappie. I succeeded first. I motored over and told him and Bubba what to do and what to use as George busily rigged his rod. Betty sat there, confused. I asked her to pass me her fishing rod and I rigged it accordingly. George flailed the water attempting to catch a crappie, ignoring Betty. I explained to her how to cast and how to retrieve the lure and how to tell when she had a bite. It took a few tries but she eventually got the hang of it. George whined. Betty caught a fish. George whined some more. Betty caught another fish. George whined even more. I contemplated sending George to sleep with the fishes. Betty caught the biggest crappie. The only part of this I never understood was…she ended up marrying George,

         And that brings us to today. My wife, Linda and I have been married for sixteen years. She never showed much interest in going fishing with me, until this year. I suspect some of it may be due to the brain surgery I had this past spring. The first couple of trips I made, I literally had to crawl out of the boat on my hands and knees. But for whatever reason, she decided she wanted to go fishing. I didn’t hesitate. I bought her a license and off we went. I taught her how to cast. I explained what a strike felt like and at the end of the day…she caught the biggest fish. (I sat in the back of the boat eating a Lebanon bologna sandwich)

So, do I ever take the women folk fishin’ with me?

“Only one, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”