June 9, 2024

Bromance

Sunday morning coffee started on the couch and moved to the floor. Koda, our most finicky eater, sometimes wouldn’t eat unless mom and dad were sitting next to him. So, my wife and I drank our coffees while I sat on the dining room floor, and she sat perched on the dog bed.

After the dogs finished their breakfast, my wife put some cinnamon rolls in the oven and then smothered them in orange flavored icing. They were amazing, and I gobbled my food, washing it down with a second cup of coffee. While eating, my wife suggested we go fishing this morning before it got hot outside. This sounded like something I wanted to get involved with.

I went to change clothes, looking for my lucky fishing hat. No, I didn’t believe in lucky clothes, but the hat helped keep the sun off my face. When my wife came out, she looked super cute, sporting cutoff jean shorts, a black tank top covered in an unbuttoned flannel shirt. Best looking fishing buddy ever.

Before we left, I went to the shed and pulled out a mess of fishing bait, looking for the fattest and juiciest worms. I couldn’t believe how many I had. I found the worms clumped together in large piles. Fishing would help cull them back.

We drove to Buckhorn Reservoir, commenting on the corner house that was for sale and how bad the crazy wallpaper looked in the Zillow pictures. I showed my wife the algae covered pond near the entrance and then we drove to find a parking spot. I expected to fish from the wooden dock that was stationary, but my wife opted to go to the plastic pier that moved with the water. She was prone to getting motion sickness, but apparently, this morning she was feeling feisty.

We found a pleasant spot at the end of the pier. When I first started fishing at the reservoir, the small shop near the boat ramp was open. It had now been closed for over a year, but a worker had shown me a depth level map pointing out a deep channel was about fifteen feet south of the westernmost pier. I always found it to be the best fishing spot. We set up our things, and I baited my wife’s hook. She asked once how to operate the reel, and then she was off fishing.

The last time I fished at Buckhorn, I had given a man my leader, so I sat down and worked on tying a hook, swivel, and weights onto my line. Before I finished my first knot, my wife had already reeled in a bluegill. I took it off the hook for her and she caught another one before my line was in the water.

It was a beautiful morning and even though the sun was glaring; it was still relatively low on the horizon. There was a slight breeze coming off the water, which was mostly still. Several boats were coming in and out of the ramp area and a few people were fishing behind us. My wife and I were in good spirits.

There was a large wolf spider crawling on the pier that approached us several times. On its last approach, my wife smacked it with her shoe. She let it set for a few minutes and then she baited her hook with the spider and fished it. She actually got a bite and lost her bait. Even I had never baited a hook with a freshly killed spider. Who was this new fishing buddy of mine? The bromance was on, except this bro was my adorable spider killing, bait hooking, fish catching, face smooching wife.

After catching her fifth fish, my wife told me she had to learn how to hold the fish, take it off the hook, and release it back into the water. I gave her some basic instructions, showing her where the fins were that could poke her. Nobody enjoyed getting finned by a fish. My wife took hold of a smallmouth bass she caught and took out the hook. The fish wriggled and poked her hand. She didn’t like it, but we celebrated this rite of passage. For the rest of the day, she baited her hook, caught fish, and released them on her own. I was very proud.

It was a fun morning on the water, and the fish were biting. After a few hours, the sun had come up, and the temperature was getting hot. We shifted our hats and bodies to protect ourselves from the sun, but the pier didn’t offer any shade, unless you counted the shadow of your fishing pole. We were both getting hungry, so I called it. Last worm. This was when you fished one more piece of bait before packing up.

By the time we gathered our things and started moving toward the truck, we had caught about twenty fish. Two-thirds of them were bluegills, and the others were all smallmouth bass. Most importantly, I would be remiss if I didn’t record here that my wife caught twice as many fish as I did. She seemed to enjoy fishing and being out in nature. It would be one of my favorite memories of committing sheer fishing savagery at Buckhorn.

We took a detour on the way home, driving into Bailey to pick up a few things from the Piggly Wiggly. My wife wanted to bake sugar cookies and needed some ingredients to add to her witchy brew. When we got back to the house, we saw our new neighbors preparing to put a small fence up. We talked to them for a bit and showed them where the internet company buried the cable, as they were close to where my neighbor was digging. They probably found it annoying, but my work required the internet to be functioning. My neighbor chuckled, telling us he’d fix whatever he broke. As luck would have it, he worked for Spectrum, our internet service provider.

My wife sat down to study before making cookies, and I jumped in the shower to wash off the morning fishing. The highlight of the evening was when my wife put together a kite she bought last week at Lidl. She had never flown a kite and told me the wind had picked up outside. We both went to the front yard. It was about one hundred and fifty degrees outside with a one mile per hour wind. Well, that was what it felt like.

Never a couple to be deterred, we worked hard to get the kite up. At one point, an actual breeze came through and the kite flew up about ten feet in the air. There it flew for about ten seconds before crashing back down to earth, overcome by the force of gravity and lack of wind. My wife said it was the funnest things she had done. I wondered if she knew the kite was supposed to stay up longer. Hot from the heat and laughter, we went back inside to cool off.

In the evening, the house filled with smells of yumminess. What was that? Bacon. Good god, it smelled otherworldly. For dinner, my wife made a delicious potato soup with bacon, and braised beef ribs. The food was outstanding, and the ambiance of eating dinner on the deck with this pretty lady was perfect. Staring at her face, I quietly vowed to out-fish her the next time we were on the water.