June 15, 2024

Good Catch

The weather report called for a string of sunny days, but last night an unexpected thunderstorm blew in, waking us up in the middle of the night. In the morning, I heard my wife get out of bed, opening my eyes in time to see her shutting the bedroom door behind her. She always did this when she wanted me to sleep in. Her next mission would be to keep the dogs quiet.

Almost immediately, Bodhi started crying at the top of his lungs. He kept up the horrendous noise, excited that my wife was up because he wanted to go outside. I laughed, threw off the covers, and got out of bed. My wife apologized, but we both knew keeping the dogs quiet first thing in the morning was a near impossible task.

After feeding the dogs, we sat down to have our morning coffee. While talking on the couch, we decided we would go fishing while it was still cool outside. We changed clothes and went to the shed to raid the earthworm bins. Last week, I cut a bad avocado in half and threw it into the worm bin, covering it up with soil. When I stirred the dirt in that bin, it exposed the avocado that had forty or fifty worms attached to it. They loved it.

We packed up my SUV and headed off to the reservoir, enjoying the five-mile drive through the countryside. It was a beautiful day, and the lake was relatively empty. The water looked brownish, but I could still see the bottom of the lake near the shoreline. We grabbed our things and headed down the westernmost pier, setting up our gear.

I caught a smallmouth bass on my first cast and reeled in fish for the rest of the time I was there. Fishing started off slow for my wife. On an early cast, her line got snagged on something. When we tugged on the line, trying to break it loose, we realized it was dragging in something heavy. It was definitely not a fish, but something was slowly coming toward the surface as we kept pulling. I figured we must have snagged an old fishing line, which was not terribly uncommon. 

As her line rose to the surface, we saw that a large nylon rope had caught her hook. As we kept pulling, we thoroughly expected a body part to be attached to the rope, because Dateline. Seeing a large metal cylinder that looked like a lock didn’t help the matter. We pulled it all the way out of the water and, alas, there were no body parts attached. While the rope and metal sat on the pier, I realized this was a fishing magnet. Someone must have gotten it stuck and cut the line. 

I remembered a few weeks ago, some police officers or sheriff’s deputies were at this same location training to recover evidence with the magnets. I wondered if this was one of theirs. While I found magnet fishing, which involved throwing a powerful magnet attached to a line into bodies of water and discovering metal objects, interesting, I knew I would never invest money into a magnet. Now, I didn’t have to since we were the proud new owners of an abandoned magnet and line. It was a good catch.

A few casts later, I caught an old fishing line from the bottom of the lake. It looked to have been there for a while with its rusted hook, but the line looked terribly familiar. It was an uncommon type of leader with a swivel up top, a hook in the middle, and two crimped weights on the bottom. This was my signature fishing rig, and I felt surprised to catch an old line of my own.

The morning sky was heavily clouded, providing protection from the sun’s heat. I caught about a dozen fish, while my wife caught half as many. I chided her about it, but she knew it was all a joke. We were happy to be at the reservoir relaxing together. After a few hours of fishing, the clouds had all burned off, and the sun was shining at full force, heating the area. A man on a wave runner made several passes near the pier at full speed, causing the water to ripple into waves that made the pier bounce up and down. The boaters loading and unloading their vessels did not appreciate the rough water. The wave runner never caught fire, despite my fiery glares.

Hot and hungry, we called the day, gathered our things, and loaded them up. We both went to the restroom to wash our hands before leaving Buckhorn and driving into Wilson for breakfast. The restaurant was super busy, although we didn’t have to wait for a table. However, the place was so loud that it was hard to have a conversation. The difference in the atmosphere between the quiet lake and noisy restaurant made the clamor seem even louder. We were happy to eat and even happier to get out of the place.

I suggested we do our normal weekend grocery shopping while we were in Wilson. We made stops at Target and Lidl, picking up a trellis for the yard and a miniature picnic table made for small children. My wife wanted to put it in the feeding area so we could catch funny videos of the raccoons feasting at their own table.

Once the shopping was done, my wife took me to Culver’s and bought me an ice cream for Father’s Day. While we didn’t have any children, we took our role as dog parents seriously. I appreciated the cool snack. When we arrived at the house, we put away all the groceries and my wife got busy studying while I worked on editing pictures. We probably worked for three hours straight.

In the evening, after all the physical and mental work was over, we moved outside, put on some music, and sipped cold IPAs. When we were hungry, my wife made a savory Mexican rice while we grilled fresh corn, cut off the cob, and marinated skirt steak. When the food was done, we threw some corn tortillas on the grill and made some of the best tacos I had eaten in a while. It was an amazing Saturday, and we appreciated the time off work.