"I caught you a delicious bass."

“I caught you a delicious bass.”

This is one of my favorite lines from Napoleon Dynamite. I need to take time to reflect on Napoleon Dynamite sometime. I absolutely love this movie.

The point of this posting is my gradual reacquaintance with fishing. I used to go fishing a lot with my grandmother and great-aunt. We used a lot of live bait (like crickets and worms) and caught a lot of bluegill and crappie.

As I grew older, got busier, I lost time for fishing. Recently, my father-in-law started inviting me to fish on his farm. Last summer, we caught some catfish. This was my first attempt at stream fishing. Today, he took me fishing at one of his ponds and I caught my first bass. The first one I caught today was a pretty good size fish. It was a nice fight, but clearly stacked in my favor. I caught several other, much smaller fish and released them. I had a really nice time.

What I discovered last year, and today, was that the worst day of fishing is typically better than the best day of just about anything else. I really like standing near the water, casting, hearing birds (and cows on the farm) and enjoying nature. Honestly, I could do that for an afternoon without catching a single thing.

So, I have my two bass filets in my freezer and a great day of relaxation.