A friend and I went fishing a few weeks ago. It was an amazing day on the lake: perfect weather, glassy water, and lots o’ fish. We were in a quiet shady cove as the day was winding down when I saw something on the shore maybe 500 feet or so farther up the inlet. It mostly looked like a black blob, possibly an animal or just an old log sticking up, but there was something almost…sinister about it.
“I can’t tell what that is up there, can you?” my friend asked.
“No, but I keep looking at it,” I said.
“It’s not moving, is it?”
We were talking quietly, almost whispering really.
“I’m not sure. It’s probably just a pile of rocks or something, but it’s kind of freaking me out.”
“I know. Me, too. It’s like a creepy fisherman.”
“That’s what I was thinking, even though I know it’s not.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s not. But still.”
“I know.”
Cast…
Reel…
Cast…
Reel…
Cast…
“You know we’re going to have to go see what it is.”
“Good. Otherwise it’s gonna give me nightmares.”
We didn’t fire up the motor and head straight for it. We actually didn’t say anything more about it. We just kept fishing, drifting slowly in that direction. The bass were biting like crazy! My friend caught something every couple of casts. As soon as his bait hit the surface: Bam! There went another one! Unbelievable. Super fun.
I watched him unhook and set his latest catch back in the water. When I looked up I was eye to eye with the creepy fisherman. Well, he was quite a bit shorter than me so we weren’t actually eye to eye. Plus, he wasn’t really a creepy fisherman. He was an old tree stump that looked nothing like a fisherman at all.
“Well, here’s our fisherman,” I said.
“Really? That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
We didn’t know how we had turned this small hunk of wood into some ghostly creature. In our defense, though, it was kind of a creepy tree stump; that and the fact that the sun was going down…and our eyesight isn’t great…and we might be weirdos.
In hindsight, though, the creepy fisherman taught me a few things.
When you’re facing something scary:
-take a buddy.
-take your time. It’s okay to let yourself drift for a while. You don’t have to start up the motor and charge toward it full speed ahead.
-have fun anyway.
-you’ll come to a point when it’s time to look the scary thing in the eye and see it for what it is–or what it isn’t.
.
Thanks creepy fisherman.
.
.
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P.S. Have fun anyway!
* BigPolly * 