Best friends, one of the necessities of life. A best friend is someone who will celebrate the joys in your life and feel no jealousy; someone with sturdy shoulders to cry on when life throws you a curve ball; someone who knows when to dish out the advice and when to just listen. If you have one person in your life that you can call your best friend you can count yourself extremely lucky.
I guess I’m luckier than most because my best friend, Lisa, also happens to be my fishing buddy. A few years back, just before my birthday, she inquired if my husband and I had any special plans to celebrate. My birthday is in mid-September, usually on or within a few days of the opening weekend of bow deer season, which I wouldn’t miss for anything. Hubby had other plans for that weekend, so we would not be together, and even though we celebrated early, it just wasn’t the same. So she asked if I wanted to launch one of the boats and spend the afternoon fishing. She didn’t have to ask twice.
We launched the boat and headed out across the bay to the old stone quarry, a challenging spot to fish but a place that holds some monster bass. We anchored the boat, baited up and tossed our lines out on the water. Settling back, we just talked about nothing for a while. Then she asked if I would mind getting up since she needed something from under the seats. Out came an entire birthday party, cards, presents and even a birthday cake complete with candles. Since the fish weren’t biting we partied the rest of the afternoon. I guess only a best friend would have thought of that
Since that year the birthday fishing trip has become a tradition. With the start of deer hunting it signifies the last fishing trip of the season for us, at least until winter sets in and the ice fishing starts. This last year the weather was looking a little unpredictable so we opted against taking out the boat, but that wouldn’t stop us. We decided to fish Kangaroo Lake, off a causeway that cuts the small lake in half. Settling in with all our gear and munchies, we cast our lines out, carefully aiming for the edge of the weed beds. On occasion we cast to far, then would have to reel in as fast as possible to avoid getting hung up in the weeds. Other times we cast a little short, ok make that way to short, or accidentally crossed over each other’s line, again causing us to have to reel in and try again. For some reason all this seemed extremely funny at the time. Finally we hit it just right and no sooner would the bobber hit the water and it was gone. We had hit the goldmine of Bluegills. It was just one of those days where you had to reel your line in as fast as you cast it out, one after another. We were so busy catching fish that the conversation was short, our munchies went untouched and we totally forgot about the camera. The Bluegills came in all sizes, from very small to good size eaters, each one putting up quite a fight. For some reason, without discussing it, we had both decided to catch and release that evening, so worrying about limits wasn’t a problem.
All too soon the sun started to dip lower in the sky and it was hard to see the bobbers. The fish were still biting though and we weren’t quite finished. Out came our battery powered light-up bobbers. I kid you not, they do exist and they are fun. Most importantly, they kept us fishing for another half hour or so. We finally gave in to the darkening sky, packed up our gear and headed out. It had been a perfect evening; I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday present, but then I guess that’s what best friends do.
