Saturday, August 13, 2011

After Tonight I'm Finished

Ten Mile Lake: 5000 acres of rock,weeds and lily pads. It has a maximum depth of 208 feet and water clarity in this spring fed pond of 23 feet. I've fished early in the morning and caught nothing. I've done mid-day, afternoon and evening fishing. I've trolled the drop offs and I've invaded the rock beds, also nothing. In seventeen years I've accumulated four tackle boxes of lures, sinkers, bobbers, plastic worms, Rapala's that the most avid fishermen would make their lives complete. Swanson's bait shop recognizes me as their best customer: night crawlers, shiners, minnows, red tails---every kind of appetizer a sunfish would crave and still nothing.

Tonight is the night. I'll put on my mosquito net hat, a sweatshirt, lantern with extra batteries, my very best walleye lures and head out to the middle of the lake after the sun sets. I'll throw in my rapala, the one that flutters along at a depth of 18 feet and troll and troll and troll until the gas gauge is almost on empty. Then, around 2 AM, when I'm depressed, I'll head the boat toward home and never again fish this rotten, stinking lake--------until tomorrow.
It's like golfing. I can shoot a 92 and keep thinking the next day will find me in the seventies. But it doesn't.
What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

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