This is a story about my uncle who, may he rest in peace, was a bit of a, shall we say, overconfident man at times. The type of guy who thought he was the world champion in every one of his undertakings. One particular hobby he spent a lot of time and money on was fishing. He owned all the most expensive equipment one could buy -- fishing rod, lures, tackle box and all -- replete with hipwaders, a fishing vest abudant with pockets for storing a multitude of fishing paraphenalia, and, of course, the quintiessential fisherman's flask for a quick swig of whiskey to enchance the relaxing experience. Suffice it to say, the man loved fishing and was not shy when boasting about his abilities.
On a particular family trip up to a cabin we share, my father and I decided we would join in on the fishing fun. Of course, neither my father nor I are particularly skilled anglers. Therefore, we couldn't join him on his expedition because natruallly we would succeed in nothing aside from frightening off all the fish he would otherwise catch.
We weren't disuaded and managed to find a couple of reels of fishing line, some hooks and a net that someone had apparently left behind. We fashioned the line and hook to a long and sturdy stick we found in the yard and, voila, we had a fishing rod. We had no fancy and expensive lures to use, so we managed to dig up a bunch of worms from under a rock in the garden to use as bait. The whole process was subjected to much ridicule by my uncle who ascertained that our family would certainly starve if we were stranded with no food supply. And on that uplifting note, we were off to the river.
My uncle staked out his spot and began casting away as we continued upriver. My dad, being a particular savy individual, found us a spot of slow moving water behind a large boulder. He reasoned we could hide ourselves behind the rock and cast or makeshift rod into the pool where there was sure to be a lot of fish tired of fighting the current. I was armed with the net and it was my duty to capture any fish that my old man hooked. It wasn't 2 minutes before my dad managed to hook a trout and I promptly succeeded in netting it. We managed to capture a few fish with this technique and continue working our way upriver, stopping at all the small pools we could find, repeating the process. By day's end, we probably had 15 fish at least.
Upon returning to the cabin, we happily showed off our catch to everyone who remained. We had enough fish to feed everyone that was there, so we started frying some of the trout for dinner. My uncle had not yet returned, and, I must admit, my dad and I were hoping he'd show up with less than 15 fish for a nice serving of poetic justice for dessert. Well, I supposed karma rewarded us when he returned several hours without a single fish. Before he saw our haul, he was ripe with excuses of the river being devoid of fish, the weather not being ideal and an array of other excuses. I'll never foget the look on his face when he turned the corner into the kitchen and he saw the massive amount of fish we had hauled home. We didn't have to endure much more of his boasting after that outing.
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