One night about nine years ago, I was out on the town with friends when I met a gorgeous girl who actually wanted to talk to me, and we found a quiet (well, quieter) place to sit down.
A moment like this was where my fastest-talking college buddies had always used the Dark Side of the Force mingled with their preferred method for picking up girls. One guy told bad jokes; one ignored the girl; and another was deliberately insulting, nearly to point of getting slapped….somehow all three left the bar with a phone number written on their hand a lot more often than they didn’t.
Lacking such Jedi mind tricks or the ruthlessness to pull them off, I fell back on my comfort zone—the only stuff I could talk about with some degree of confidence despite my trembling knees and clammy palms.
Fishing.
The result was like something out of my favorite
Rapala commercial. Turned out, she loved fishing—and hunting—and was able to bear with my awkwardness long enough to get to know me. And like me. Even marry me!
I’m a lucky guy.
She (among other things) makes a mean fish fry, likes a cold beer now and then, and is tolerant—even encouraging—of my desire to disappear for days at a time on the water or in the woods. She’s even pioneered and mastered a whole arsenal of ninja moves that allow her to discreetly use the ladies room while we’re fishing together on crowded lakes—both on open water and ice.
I know a lot of guys with high-maintenance wives or girlfriends who think I’m living the dream, and they’re mostly right. But what none of them seem to realize is that this dream comes with the hidden price of being out-fished by one’s wife, as mine does….almost always.
It makes me want to tear my hair out in clumps. But it’s not simple jealously or the product of a misguided sexist notion that I’m “above” being out-fished by a woman.
We’ve all been out-done on the water. But whether by man or woman, it’s usually by a fishing partner that’s working at least as hard and putting in as much thought as we are. They deserve it.
But that’s not my wife.
She stubbornly fishes with the same rod-and-reel she’s had since middle school—whether we’re fishing for crappies or walleyes, bass or pike. Talk to her about forage base and moon phase and water temperature and you’ll see her eyes glaze over. Ask how deep she’s fishing, what line she has spooled, or even what lure she’s throwing and she’ll usually shrug her shoulders.
Then she’ll catch a fish. And another…all while I catch nothing.
Case in point: Early this fall, we hit an awesome crappie bite on the Ontario side of Lake of the Woods…awesome for her, anyway. While I carefully placed baits in front of fish I marked on the sonar, devoting every ounce of my attention to making a perfect presentation and detecting bites, she snacked, snapped photos—even napped. A couple of the ninja moves got a workout.
And in the span of a morning, she’d caught over a dozen slabs. Big ones. I caught two. Literally.
Does your wife or girlfriend do this to you, too? Don’t need to bear the pain alone—share it here.
It’ll help…maybe.
Ryan