Flowers and Fish

[mishalak]

Suggested by rvrjoe775

A Pointless Story
In about 1989, maybe a year later or earlier, my family went fishing to at a lake near Durango (the one in Colorado, not Mexico). This is was a terribly unusual thing as we often went on three camping trips a summer. We'd go on a weekend trips and sometimes a big one a week or more journal across the west.

By this time I had fallen into a routine in fishing. I would get up early in the morning at my dad's rousing. I'm not often the sort that rises without the push of someone else, be that a job or my parents. Though it is easier when camping since I have to go to bed the same time as everyone else for the most part. So awaked by dad to get dressed and head out with fishing pole and tackle box into the uncertain morning light.

Once out there I would bait my hook with floating bait, cast out, and settle back with my pole propped between two rocks. I'd sit on a log or large stone and when the light grew enough I would pull the book out of one of my coat's pockets. Then I would read with the tip of my pole just visible over its top edge. My dad didn't like this at all. He thought that I should pay more attention to my fishing and was sure that I lost fish that I could have caught if I had not been reading. What he didn't understand, what he may not still, is that while fishing is all right I'm not a victory driven as he is. I would catch a few then go back and he'd be frustrated that I didn't want to stay out for hours still.

I would go do other things, like looking at flowers and sometimes digging up a small one just before we would leave to take home. I had great success doing this and some of them or their decedents grow at my parents' new house. I loved being out in nature and walking about, but for me it isn't a challenge to be overcome. It is something to be experienced and I don't care if I have not caught the limit on my fishing license yet.

So what I remember best about this trip is it was the one that I got my Shooting Star Columbine on and it was the first one when I firmly put down my foot to my dad and succeeded. It was getting late into the morning and I decided it was time to go back even though I had not caught a fish. My dad wanted to go just a little longer and tried to get me to do it, but I just went back and had breakfast.

I would go still, but camping takes time that I now spend on fandom and the money I spend on that as well.

Comments

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

I never understood the attraction to fishing, at all. Camping, you bet! Hiking, sure, why not? But fishing? The whole concept escapes me. What is even more baffling is why anyone would want to watch someone else fishing on TV.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

For me it is the excuse to sit out somewhere scenic while reading with the bonus of having really fresh fish for lunch. People who cannot stand to just wait take up fly fishing so they can do something rather than just sitting there. It is rather like waiting for a elk to come in while hunting. I don't mind waiting, but I insist that I have something to do like reading while I'm doing it.