A fishing trip? Hot diggity, sign me up.
Going fishing is like being a 10-year-old again. It’s recess on the water. So when a neighbor asked if I’d like to join him and a friend for a weekend of angling on Lake Ontario and the Salmon River I said “I’m in,” even before asking how much this little lark to upstate New York was going to cost.
There were some pesky details to consider, enough wampum for food, drink, lodging, license, the charter (plus tips), and chipping in for gas. The devil was really in those details, but I was onboard when my neighbor regaled me with tales of their last jaunt to the big lake when they each caught limits of huge brown trout and salmon. He said they brought home 20 pounds of fillets and were giving salmon away. You “give away” your garden zucchini, not wild-caught salmon.
I fished Lake Ontario and the Salmon River several times in my early outdoor writing days. I do remember that on at least two adventures we banged fish by the barrel; hoot and holler outings. But once I went out with a local luminary guide and trolled for eight hours without a hit. I detest trolling, but that was this guy’s game plan. I would have gone to Plan B, but I was a non-paying guest and kept my mouth shut. Remembering that all-day debacle, I packed a couple of hard-cover murder mysteries for this go-around.
I began to have bad vibes when I was shown the rear seat of an SUV for a five-hour ride, meaning I was not driving and not in control. I don’t handle being “trapped” well. My road-trip mantra is “keep the wheels turning,” meaning I only stop when absolutely necessary for gasoline or the call of nature. I can make it to a favorite destination, Lake Placid, which is a six-hour drive from central New Jersey, without a pit stop. I pack a sandwich, snacks and avoid drinking a lot of water or coffee. But my front-seat pilot and co-pilot do lunch, as in stopping for same. They also do breakfast and dinner. It is a topic of constant conversation as in “what are we going to do about?” the aforementioned.
These were a couple of good guys just overly concerned about where their next meal was coming from. Maybe their parents denied them second helpings. The other main subject, God forbid we talk about fishing, is how many “rest” stops are between here and there. I am riding with two senior citizens who must have bladders the size of walnuts. There are frequent stops. This is before they mention “lunch.”
It reminded me of my party boat days when my alleged pals had to wolf down a local diner breakfast before boarding. Other than wasting time, I have found that digging into a big, usually greasy, breakfast is generally not a good idea before a boat ride on the ocean. But we piddled away an hour squeezed in a vinyl booth for diner food on the way to Pulaski. I’m probably the only guy living in New Jersey who doesn’t like diners.
As we continued North on I-81, I had the temerity to ask about our lodging. My neighbor said he hadn’t heard back from the owner “in a month or so.” Wonderful. Turns out the lodge was for sale; the operator was going through a divorce and we had to wake him from a late-afternoon nap upon our arrival. “See you guys at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning at the boat,” the lodge owner/charter boat captain said before we left for our rooms. He didn’t actually show until 0600.
Those initial bad vibes were now doing the chicken dance between my ears. We had two days on the lake, one with 5-foot wind-whipped waves and the other calmer, but with the same results, a fishless boat ride. En route home we had to stop for lunch, of course, glomming down pedestrian grub in a chain restaurant in a shopping mall outside of Scranton, PA. Shoot me now.
Take another trip like that? When swine go airborne. I can get skunked at home. And it’s a lot closer.
