Gone Fishin'

This morning I woke up at 5:30 on purpose.  Strange as it may seem, I did this of my own free will.  When James invited me to go fishing several weeks ago, I said yes.  

I've never really been a fisherman.  I went with my granddad years ago, and I always managed to frustrate him.  I even pulled on my rod so hard once that it snapped in two.  Oh he loved that!  When I would get bored, which was often, I would toss rocks.  Yep, fishing is in my blood!

Nevertheless, when James said fishing, the memories above became warm memories, and I missed my granddad.  I thought about how I had his fishing pole, and I had never used it.  I thought I could even have fun.  So, I said yes.

Now James is a great guy.  He knew I was basically a novice.  He's taught kids to fish.  He had the right qualifications to teach me to fish and to teach me to have fun fishing.  So two weeks before today, James spent our encounters at work educating me about fishing:  How to properly set up your line, What fishing off a jetty means for you and the fish, Where different knots go, and What to wear.  Then last week, I took my granddad's fishing pole to work, and James brought some weights.  Having graduated from theory, James showed me how to tie knots and had me do some practice casts on the field.  I was prepared to fish.

Granddad had spent his time trying to teach me knots.  He took me fishing and showed me how to cast.  Give him credit, you can only teach someone who doesn't want to learn so much.  All I had wanted was to make him happy; I'm not sure I had ever wanted to fish.

Today, for the first time in my life, I both felt prepared to and wanted to fish.  I woke up.  I got dressed.  James picked me up and we drove in the late evening early morning to Newport.  We crawled down trails and out along the jetty and we cast our lines.   James caught three fish.  I caught one.  Not a great tally, but I'm told the tides were not favoring us.  I have now, however, doubled the number of fish I have caught unaided.  It's a great feeling.

At the end of the fishing day, sun high in the mid-day sky, we climbed back to the car and ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches, our cleaned hands still stinking like fish.  The sandwhiches tasted great.  My cheeks were a bit rosier from the sun and also sore from all the smiling.  I won't be waiting as long to go fishing again.