If I had to describe our friend, Jim, in one word it would be debonnaire. CEO and owner of his own event planning company, he hobnobs with the top brass of the Fortune 500 companies. He dresses in the finest clothes, his shoes are Italian leather. So when I heard his daughter, Jenna, wanted him to take her fishing, I knew I had to find out what happened.Jim and his wife, LuAnn, lived at that time in Newport Beach, an upscale coastal community in Southern California. He'd seen plenty of people fishing off the jetty and decided that would be the place for their outing.
Not wanting to seem less than knowledgeable in front of his daughter, he made a clandestine visit to the jetty, intent on learning all he could about fishing from a couple of seasoned fishermen. As he watched them, he took in the way the men dressed, how they cast their lines and reeled in their catch. He was sure he could do it. Before he left, he asked them what they used for bait.
"Sardines're the best, if you want to catch anything worth frying up for dinner."
These guys fry what they catch for dinner?
Jim wasn't sure about the frying part, but he assumed Jenna would indeed want to keep her first fish. He knew game hunters had their first kills mounted. Could you do that with a fish?
His next stop was the recommended tackle store to purchase rods and reels. He saw some bait in the shop, little jars of round, pink eggs but no sardines. He left without bait.
The next morning dawned bright and sunny for their adventure. They packed up the tackle, and LuAnn handed them a lunch of ham sandwiches in a brown bag. No fancy picnic hamper on a fishing trip to the jetty.
Jim even dressed the part, finding the oldest pants he owned, a pair of designer jeans. He slipped on the fishing vest he purchased with the tackle. As they drove off, he pondered the best place to get bait.
Not seeing any signs for sardines along the highway, he pulled into the first market he spotted. He and Jenna wandered the aisles until they spotted canned sardines that came with their own convenient little key opener.
Jim picked up three cans. That ought to be enough. If those two old coots could catch their dinner with these, he could show Jenna a fun afternoon.
At the cash register, the bill was $17.37. Good grief, those two old guys could have bought a fish dinner for that amount. But they said sardines, so sardines it would be.
When they arrived at the jetty, Jim carried the tackle and bait out to the middle where the water looked deep enough. He baited a hook as Jenna watched, then drew his rod to the side and cast his line, just as he saw the other fishermen do.
The line arched high through the air toward the water.
So did the bait.
Separated from the hook, that sardine flew on its own trajectory. A seagull circling overhead dove and caught it before it splashed down.
Father and daughter looked at each other.
"I don't think that's right, Dad. Are you sure you got the right bait?"
"They're sardines. That's what I was told to get."
He tried again. As he slid another sardine onto the hook, hungry gulls circled overhead in anticipation of a free meal. Jim decided his casting was wrong. Of course! He'd forgotten the back cast.
Bait firmly ensconced on the hook, he flipped the rod backwards and with a snap of his wrist, cast it forward. On the snap, that sardine flipped off the hook and one lively gull caught it midair.
By that time, a small crowd had gathered, drawn by the flock of screeching gulls circling over the sand.
Jim grabbed another sardine, double hooked it this time and cast again.
And again.
He tried tying it on, but the line cut right through the sardine which landed on his shoe.
Each time bait and hook refused to remain together. Each time the crowd roared with laughter.
Frustration mounted.
How had those other guys done it? He was certain of its possibility...somehow. He'd seen the old guys' cooler filled with fish.
He baited and cast and baited again—through all seventeen dollars and thirty-seven cents worth of sardines. When the third can was finally empty, a few rogue bits clinging to Jim's designer jeans, the laughing crowd dispersed, wiping their eyes.
Jenna did finally get her fish, when Jim took a ham sandwich and fixed it onto the hook.
They caught a sardine.
9 comments:
That was funny! :)
When I was about 6 yrs old my family went camping. Dad said we were going to catch the biggest fish ever and cook them up for supper. We fished all weekend and they never caught a fish one. When we went to church the next Sunday everyone asked me how the camping trip was and if we eat any fish. I proudly told everyone that we had a lot of fun and we finally got to eat some fish when dad took us to LONG JOHN SILVERS! Everyone was laughing and my dad turned bright red. Sometimes you wish children would just not be so truthful...LOL It was loads of fun, though I am not much of a fisherman these days, my dad still enjoys it.
I'm not sure if this is a fishing story or a cow story. When my daughter was about 4 and my son 3, we went to visit my sister at her family farm in Kansas (we're city folks from the sprawling metropolis of San Antonio). We took the kids fishing for the first time at a small pond on the farm. A large herd of cattle grazed nearby and seemed fascinated by our activity as we got out the fishing poles and put on the bait and the kids cast their lines. They kept getting closer and closer. My son didn't seem to mind and eventually hooked his first fish. My daughter kept glancing at me, though, a look of great concern on her face. She scooted a little closer to me. She leaned in close and whispered, "Mommy, could you tell the cows to stop staring at me?" Stiffling a giggle, I tried to explain to her that they were just curious, but she didn't buy that. "Tell them to stop staring!" She finally gave up on the fishing and climbed back in the truck to wait--out of the line of vision of all those rude staring cows.
Ladystorm, that's cute. I'll have to remember that one.
Kelly, that's a hoot. I can just hear her tellin gyou that.
If this keeps up, I should have lots of fodder.
Ann, LOVED the punch line of your story! What a hoot!
Here's sort of a fish story:
When our oldest son, Tarl, was 6 and our youngest, Trey, was just learning to walk, I took the boys to watch their dad play in a hometown baseball game. While I sat on the bottom row of the bleachers yakking with the other wives, Trey toddled happily along the row of bleachers, and Tarl ran off with some other kids to play in the puddles from a recent rain. A few minutes later, Tarl came back with a huge grin and an old paper Pepsi cup full of muddy water. "Look Mom! We caught some tadpoles in that puddle." Sure enough I could count at least five of the squirmy things swimming in the cup. "Hold this for me, Mom... I'm going to go catch some more."
Off he ran, and I held onto the cup for him--that is, until one of the dads made a home run and some of the moms started telling interesting stories. Eventually, almost without thinking, I set the cup on the bleachers beside me for safekeeping.
A few minutes later, Tarl came to collect his critters. But the cup was gone! At the same instant, we both looked a few feet down the bleachers and there stood little Trey, drinking deeply from a Pepsi cup, muddy water running down his chin.
Tarl raced over to rescue his catch. But too late. Trey let out a satisfied sigh, set down the cup and started CHOMPING on something.
Sure enough, Tarl stared into the cup and counted, one, two.... One, two. Only two? Yep, only two tadpoles survived, though Trey didn't suffer so much as a belly ache for his adventure. Interestingly enough, just the other day, Trey sent me a photo from Seattle where he'd taken his fiance to visit Tarl. The picture shows the three of them eating--SUSHI! ; )
One summer, when my daughter (Tiffany) was about 6, our neighbor's nephews came to visit. The younger nephew, Greg, is only 1year older than Tiffany. They soon were friends. Until "the fishing incident" that is!
The boys and their Grampa decided to do some fishing off the dock at the lake. The boys weren't having any luck at all - they didn't catch a single fish all day. When they'd been at it a while, they invited Tiffany to join them. Grampa baited the hook for her then she tossed it into the water (no fancy casting or anything like that). Right away she caught a fish! The boys were mad at her for the rest of that day :-)
I fell in love with my husband because of fishing. Really.
As a single woman in a town with an area of one square mile, I was desperate for something to do. So when my landlord asked me to go fishing with him, I agreed. (That's how desperate I was.)
When "Honey" found out that the only single woman in town was going fishing, he invited himself along. So our first date was a chaperoned fishing trip to my landlord's pond. We'd planned to fish from the bank and a little boat.
But the reason I fell in love with him was because my first cast, which was from the bank, caught a fish. Rather than make me pull it through the weeds, he waded into the pond to get the fish for me. That's all it took - I was hooked.
Angie
These are all great stories! Bits and pieces are going to find their way into my book. :D
Now THAT's a fish story! I love it.
too too funny-thanks for the story:)
What funny stories you all can tell! Makes me want to fish...wait...nevermind. I hate fishing. Still, fishing with YOU guys sounds like a lot of fun!
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