Bait or Supper?

 

  About a week ago, my neighbor and good friend, Butch, mentioned that a friend of his who he has hunted and fished with for years wanted to go fishing for the afternoon at Finger Lake, close to home. He wanted to take his boat out and make sure the motor was running OK. Of course I don't know what we would have done if we'd gotten stuck out in the middle of the lake, since he didn't have a kicker motor, but I'm sure we could have gotten a tow in before it got dark.

The day was almost ideal for fishing, overcast with a slight wind. It was kind of cool, but I had brought my jacket, so I was pretty comfortable, unlike my last experience with a boat up here. I need to do a post about that, but I want to get a picture of the boat I rented first so you'll have an appreciation of what an experience that was.

Anyway, we motored over to where my friends wanted to fish and I dropped a salmon egg into the water with a bobber about three feet up the line. It didn't take long, and I had a bite. I caught a land locked Coho salmon, about ten inches long. It put up a fight, but frankly, I've never caught a Coho that small before. If we brought a three pound Silver aboard back in Southeast, it was considered tiny. This one looked like it just hatched a year or so ago. Nonetheless, it was fun to catch, and I was the first one to get anything, which is rather an odd situation. Surprisingly, not long after, I caught another one. Of course I was delighted, and I would like to think that my companions were happy for me as well, which I'm sure they were. However, if you spend any time fishing, while it may be fun watching someone else catch a fish, the whole idea is to catch one yourself. Eventually Butch picked up a little Coho. Then I caught yet another one, the one pictured above, although when I caught it, it still had a head and guts. This one unfortunately had swallowed the hook, which kind of surprised me because I was fishing with a little larger hook, and it was a circle hook as well, which usually catches the fish just in the side of the mouth. Even though there were several eagles flying around who would have been happy to take the fish off my hands, I nonetheless felt obligated, although thoroughly humiliated, to take the fish home. In retrospect, the eagle would have enjoyed it much more than I did.

When I got it home, I cleaned the poor, pathetic little thing and even opted to put it on the barbeque. For reasons unknown, I didn't season it at all. No salt, not pepper, no garlic, nothing, just plopped it on the grill and let it cook, which was all of about five minutes.

Needless to say, it was a major disappointment. By the time I picked off the skin, and pulled about two hundred bones out of my mouth, I got about one mouthful of meat. Hardly worth the twenty dollar launching fee that I paid to go fishing. However, it was still fun to go out, and if the opportunity arises again, I'd gladly go.

The old saying about fish or cut bait took on a new meaning. What happens when the fish you catch could easily substitute for bait? Oh well.