One day last week, I spent three hours in a boat. On a lake. On a beautiful day.
Life can be so hard sometimes.
I’d arrived at the Outcast Bass Club’s Thursday Night Lunker Tournament at Lake Marburg just in time to meet with the organizer and have him arrange for me to go out on a boat with two participants. Every Thursday afternoon/evening, participants get to fish on the lake from 5:30 to 8:30 and bring back their biggest catch to be weighed. Whoever brings in the biggest fish for that day wins 1st Lunker, and participants’ weekly tallies will be totaled at the end of the season for cash and other prizes.
So last Thursday, I hung out with Jason and Ryan, who are brothers-in-law, as they fished.
The shadow of Jason Martin, of Reading Township in Adams County, is cast on his brother-in-law Ryan Miller of Hanover as the two fish for bass from the boat they share on Lake Marburg in Codorus State Park on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011.
Jason and Ryan were the leaders in the tournament so far, the organizer told me before he added that I should cut their lines if they caught anything. Each man caught a fish that night…
© 2011 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. Jason Martin of Reading Township in Adams County removes his hook and lure from a largemouth bass he caught in Lake Marburg in Codorus State Park on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011.
…but each bass was just shy of the 15-inch minimum requirement for a fish to be weighed at the end of the night.
Earlier in the afternoon, Jason asked when I’d last gone fishing. I described to him an old photo of my first and last fishing expedition, which took place off a dock in Galveston, Texas. Here’s the photo, which aptly summarizes my brief encounter with a live fish:
Circa 1992 or 1993.
Jason laughed and said that, once they caught a fish, they’d make me hold it before they put it in their aerated tank or tossed it back into the lake. I’m not especially squeamish — it’s just that fish are really bizarre creatures — but I was relieved that, in their hurry to measure the fish and get them back into the lake, we all forgot about Jason’s promise each time they caught a fish.
As we headed back to the landing just before 8:30 p.m., the men asked me what I thought. Most girls and women, they said, find fishing to be exceedingly boring.
Nah, I said, it was relaxing. There are far worse ways to spend three hours than to be on a boat. On a lake. On a beautiful day.
© 2011 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. Jason Martin of Reading Township in Adams County lowers his rod after casting out his line near the end of the evening at Lake Marburg in Codorus State Park on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011.
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