I’m just getting back from carp fishing as I sit down to write this; a walking path meanders around and along the banks of this lazy river and I’ve encountered some real characters there. I’m – typically – a pretty friendly guy. If you walk by me, and we make eye contact, I’m going to say hello, it drives my daughter nuts! “Dad! Why do you have to talk to everyone?!” But I think the tendency to look away or ignore each other is one of issues that’s fueling the divisiveness that has crept in and began to poison nearly every aspect of community in this country…but I don’t want to get political, I just want to explain why I feel it’s so important to set this example for her.
Today, I had two encounters. The first was a guy who was probably 20 years older than I, and as I saw him walking toward me I saw his Bass Pro hat, so I figured we would already have something in common. As he walked by I spotted a carp along the bank, so I wasn’t as jovial as I might have been. As I slid down the steep embankment in my flip-flops, we exchanged a pleasant hello and he asked if I had caught anything. I definitely detected a hint of confident skepticism, like he thought I was crazy for fishing there. He went about 50 feet before I hooked up. The fish put on a serious show, ripping drag and loudly bull-dogging through the shallow, weedy water. “Holy CRAP!” the man shouted as he scurried back to see the fish. “I’ve always wanted to see one of those!” For the following 20 minutes or so, we were best buds.
But the real subject of this column happened about an hour later. The one time I might not be so friendly is when I see another fisherman walking past me to fish water I haven’t touched yet. I’m not crazy-competitive, but there’s a sequence of spots I like to fish and I definitely don’t love it when someone disturbs that routine. I was busting through some brush to cast when I saw a man with a landing net and a fly rod speed-walking past me. He didn’t stop or say hello, so I stayed focused on the task at hand. But I definitely waited an extra two minutes before casting so he wouldn’t see or hear if I hooked up. As luck would have it, I pulled two fish out of that spot and fully-expected to see him posted at my next stop, but he was nowhere to be found!
I fished for another 20 minutes and blew two chances before I trudged through the brush and back to the path. That’s when I saw him again, hurrying along the path and looking distressed. “Did you find my box, yet?” He yelled to me from 100 feet away. “Not yet,” I said with a hint of bewildered sarcasm, “What did it look like?” As he described the small yellow box, I could see his eyes scanning my gear and pockets for similar-sized bulges. I felt oddly accused and then I felt like I needed to find a way to prove I didn’t have it. I assumed it was full of fishing gear, but then he told me his keys were in it and that a walker had told him that he’d just seen it, basically in the same area where I had been fishing.
He didn’t outwardly accuse me of anything, but he did ask for my phone number, which I gave him and he called immediately, (probably to make sure it wasn’t fake). And when my phone rang, I could feel the grip of accusation beginning to loosen. As we parted ways, I set my mind to finding it, but I also kind of hoped I didn’t find it because, he might think that I had it all along and pulled the old “look what I found” so I could shirk the guilt and come off like a hero. Still, all I could think about was someone with bad intentions, biking back to the lot and pushing the ‘unlock’ button to find his new joyride for the day. Within 10 minutes of parting ways, he texted saying that he’d found it.
This column might sound like I was in panic mode the whole time, but I wasn’t, this is more of a log of my thoughts. However, there’s almost nothing worse than knowing you’re innocent and still being some else’s prime suspect.
