'Darn it, I told you not to bring him, he's a jinx'
Those were the exact words from Norm Budden, as three of us were busy sulking, pointing fingers and loudly blaming one other, on our return from a disastrous fishing trip to Walker Lake, last Thursday.
"Normie" was talking to Bob 'Slick" McCulloch, as they tried to fix the blame for a miserable day spent fishing for Lahontan cutthroat trout.
According to those two connivers (who are thick as two thieves in the night when it comes to ganging up on "Little Donnie Q"), they always catch lots of fish whenever I'm not there. And, also according to them, whenever I join them, the fishing is poor.
Yeah! Right! And pigs fly, too.
Far be it for me to pick on my two, regular fishing partners, but in self defense, let me tell you the true story about that fishing trip, and then you be the judge of who is the all-around, nice guy.
Several days earlier, Slick had called and said, "Hey, running dummy, my nearest, dearest, closest, bestest friend and permanent fishing partner, Norm, and I are going fishing on Thursday at Walker Lake. You can go with us, but only if you abide by several rules."
I snorted and sarcastically replied, "Like what?"
Slick explained, "The rules are simple: Be at Norm's house at 4:30. Bring lunch for all three of us and only bring one fishing pole and one tackle box. Leave all of your extra poles and tackle boxes at home. And, if you're one minute late, we're leaving without you."
Not having anything scheduled on that Thursday, I thought, "Hmmm, what the heck. Why not go because they will certainly provide me with plenty of material for a column."
So, I said, "I'll be there Thursday!"
Now, for the rest of the story:
We met at Normie's house that morning. I brought the lunch and drinks, Slick provided the truck and fishing boat, and Norm furnished the usual...himself.
Then, as we drove through the dark night, the two of them were busy, as usual, picking on me.
They told me the only reason I was allowed to accompany them was because they felt sorry for Elaine and she needed some time away from me.
Yeah! Right! You be the judge of who's sorry:
To begin with, the two of them were so busy, verbally beating me up, that Slick drove past the Week's Cutoff to Yerington and continued on towards Silver Springs.
When I asked him if that was why we had to leave so darn early, he called me a very bad name that hurt my feelings.
Then when we arrived at Walker Lake, shortly after 6 a.m., we had to sit in his truck and wait for it to get light enough to launch the boat. That's a fact!
I asked why we had to leave so darn early just to park in the dark on the ramp and they both called me bad names.
Once the boat was in the water, we had to wait and wait and wait, while Slick tried unsuccessfully to start the motor.
When I told Slick that if he wasn't so cheap and had bought a decent motor, we would not have to get up so darn early, he called me even nastier names.
When we finally pulled away from the dock I suggested to my fishing partners, "Boys, if I were steering this boat, I would head for Sand Point (north of Sportsman's Beach) because that's where they have been catching all the fish."
Norm snarled at me and replied, "My nearest, dearest, closest, bestest friend and permanent fishing partner, Bobbie and I have been fishing out here, and the fish are down by Barlow Beach. That's where we're going."
The only good guy (AKA Little Donnie Q) in the group responded, "If that's where you want to go, OK, but I think that we should go to Sand Point."
They both snickered, rolled their eyes and we continued to travel south, through the bitter cold as the eastern sky slowly got lighter.
It was so cold that our windshield frosted up and you could not see straight ahead. But that was not a problem, because who in the heck would have been dumb enough to be out on that lake at that ghastly hour on such a brutally cold morning, except for us?
When we arrived in front of Barlow Beach and began to rig up our poles for trolling, Norm began to rig up two poles.
Indignantly I asked, "Hey, Slick, what the heck is the deal? That low down cheater is going to fish with two poles and I was told to only bring one."
Slick grinned and smugly retorted, "We told YOU not to bring two poles. We never said that we were only going to be using one pole."
Norm (AKA Captain Bligh) chimed in and told me, "Yeah, and as the Co-Captain, I get to fish on the entire right side of the boat. You are going to have to share the left side with my nearest, dearest, closest, bestest friend and permanent fishing partner, Bobbie."
The only good guy in the group sighed and replied, "Aw, what the heck. I'll use my one pole and kick both of your butts. Hey, Slick, take a look at your depth finder and tell me how deep it is out here, I might want to use the downrigger."
With a sheepish look on his face, Slick informed me, "I really don't know how deep it is out here because I forgot the fish finder at home.
That was when the only good guy in the trio called the other two a whole bunch of nasty names. It felt good!
The fishing began and in the blink of an eye, I had caught the first fish of the day on a orange/bronze striped, No 2 TOR-P-DO lure.
And, I did it in the only, narrow space where I could troll, between all of the lines belonging to the two connivers.
I brought in the trout, snickered and turned it loose, unharmed, as the money-winning, first-fish of the day.
However, to be honest, for the remainder of that long, long, miserable day, I never caught another fish.
Cheater No. 1 (AKA Slick) got skunked (Yes, there is a God in Heaven!) and Cheater No. 2 (AKA Captain Bligh) caught a total of three wimpy fish on his two fishing poles (technically legal with his second rod stamp but definitely cheating on our fishing bets).
In addition:
The two "fishing experts" persisted in trolling in super shallow water, while I tried to tell them that we needed to be trolling at deeper depths.
How shallow? Well it was so shallow that you could look over the side of the boat and see the bottom and our poles kept bobbing up and down while all of the lures were being slowly dragged through the sand.
To compound our fish-catching problems, Slick was steering the boat in a very erratic, zig, zag pattern.
It prompted me to ask if we were trying to avoid being torpedoed by a submarine and he snarled at me.
Then later, Slick tried, unsuccessfully, to claim the money for the biggest catch of the day when he dragged in a nasty looking, old, long and grimy plastic bag, as his only catch of the day. A plastic bag!
I also lost all kinds of valuable fishing time, while trying to help Cheater No. 2 work on repairing his cheap, "fifteen cent," reels that kept breaking down.
Overall, it was really not a good fishing day at Walker Lake.
However, on the bright side, the best part of the day was when I shifted my little red pickup truck from low gear to second gear as I left Norm's house to return home.
Yahoo! That miserable day was finally over and I was rid of my two fishing partners - until our next outing.
- Bet Your Favorite Pigeon
Bet your favorite pigeon that he can't tell you what Captain Bligh used to catch those three wimpy fish.
If he grins and says, "Normie was using a red/white striped Apex lure that was being trolled 400 feet behind the boat," he could have been watching us with binoculars.