Well, I can always dream...

Gone Fishin’ … I wish.

Had a pleasant visit with a couple Mrs. Phos and I met in Deutschland. Mrs. Phos knew her through work and I met the two of them later. The dude has retired from the AF and has gone on what I like to refer to as a “Gone Fishin’ Retirement” In other words isn’t working. Mrs. Phos figures I would be bored silly sitting at home, but I would sure like to give it a try. The discussion is purely academic at any rate as things being as they are I won’t be able to quit working until the day they nail the lid on the box.

If I could do a “Go Fishin’ Retirement, I do believe I might actually go fishin’. Some of my fondest memories revolved around a boat, a six-pack (or more), and a small Wisconsin lake. My brother and I spent a lot of time on Lake Five, a small lake not far from Milwaukee. There weren’t a lot of speedboats or jet skis so it was very peaceful. You could see a lot of activity on the lake, coots, herons, fishing hitting the surface (vice my lure, damn it all), and it was especially beautiful when robed in Fall colors. What we were fishing for depended on what we had on the stringer, sometimes nothing at all forcing us into a sudden death pan-fish derby. In fact Mrs. Phos is sure we never actually caught anything, despite the rather nice pike I brought home once. She figured we were just after bottle bass or bikini fish.

Despite her misgivings we were after fish. In fact we were kind of diehard about the whole thing. Whether it was dodging giant waves coming up over the breakwater on Lake Michigan, occasionally stopping after a cast to scrape the ice off the reel in early Spring, or casting into the fog and listening for the splash to figure out where the lure went, praying it didn’t stuck in the pads, we would be out fishing somewhere. I generally don’t go in for “bumper sticker philosophy”, but I saw one long ago which sums it up nicely – “the worst day of fishing is better than the best day of work.”