Slim Fishin's

Saturday was a fishing day. I went down to my "spot", the last time before my yearly fishing license expires (tonite at midnite, snif).

The days around my house had been fairly calm, in the mornings at least; a respite from the howling gusts of the past couple of months, and so I decided that I was going fishing. Saturday, I rose at nearly 5 a.m., only to fall back asleep till just before 6:30. Dang! I hurried down the road, slid to a stop and double-timed it over the levee and down to the water. Even then, the wind had begun to come up and riffle the surface of the water. Double Dang.

As I waded around the flat, the wind continued to build, yet I noticed that several people were up in the Northwest corner, right where I wanted to be. I didn't see them catching anything; I didn't see them doing much of anything. I wondered if they were perhaps crabbing. There was only one of the group of four that were there was moving around like he was actually fishing.

The entire foray netted me only three undersized flounder, one of which was a mere quarter inch short of the 14 inch minimum limit. But I can't bring myself to haul a short, illegal fish and explain to my daughters why I broke the game laws just to have a fish. So they all walked. So to speak.

Still, it was beautiful, even though the fishing success was less than resounding.