photo © 2009 Rob Grambau | more info (via: Wylio)
It was a beautiful clear day back in the mid 60s, when I embarked upon my early morning fishing trip. I used to go fishing all the time, just about anywhere there was water that looked like it could have fish in it. I enjoyed the solitude, and trying to figure out what the fish were looking to eat. For a time, I even tied my own flies for trout fishing, trying to match the hatch, as they say. I did not take much to bait fishing, which consists of just waiting for something to come along and eat the bait. Most times I used, and still do, artificials such as flies, spinner baits, plastic worms, and any other kind of lure I could use on the move.
My family had a cottage on a small lake at that time. Whenever I was there, mostly weekends, I would take off in the flat bottomed aluminum rowboat across the lake to the inlet. I usually went there because it was overgrown with lily pads and I knew I could catch a lot of smallmouth bass there. In Connecticut it doesn’t get too hot in the morning, so I didn’t think to wear a shirt, only my jean shorts and a hat.
When I got to the inlet, I just let the boat drift and cast into the lily pads with a plastic worm, rigged to be weedless. On about every other cast, I caught a bass and was having so much fun I didn’t even think about the sun beating on my back.
When I got back to the cottage, my grandmother looked at my badly blistered back and immediately had me lie down on my stomach on the day bed. She went and got a pin, which she sterilized by putting it in the flame of a lighter, and started popping the numerous blisters. After Gram finished popping the blisters, she soaked a towel in ice cold water, and placed it on my back to soothe the burning. When the towel became too warm, she reapplied it. This happened about three times over the period of an hour.
I don’t know if this is the correct treatment, but it seemed to do a good job at the time. The only thing I didn’t like about the whole thing was that I was not allowed out in the sun for the rest of the week to go fishing, or just about anything else other than going to the car to go home.
Ever since then, I am careful to always cover up when I go fishing, play golf, etc.
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Inspired by The One-Minute Writer March 15, 2011 prompt http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/2011/03/todays-writing-prompt-water.html.
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