The Fishing Cousin

This 13 year old Boy Cousin (BC) is the kid that is the master jokester, bodily gas magician, wise ass and trouble maker...but when it comes to fishing…he puts everything else aside. He fishes with his dad a few times a week and with his friends several times a week. He’s got bags of gear and many poles. He loves to fish. I love this about him. I think that he likes fishing about as much as I do. So this trip to the lake, his dad was not able to come. I picked up the slack and played the role of the fishing guy. I agreed to take the boys fishing pretty much anytime that they wanted. I really liked this job. I love fishing and it gave me an opportunity to run off with the boys to hit the lake or the river at any moment.

The first day, we went down to the dock at the house to see what we could catch…kind of a test run for the week of fishing. I asked BC if he had brought any gear for me to use. He, of course, said that he did. I smiled and joined him on the dock. After looking through what he had brought, I chuckled to myself because he had a few raggedy rods, with no line on them and a seemingly half packed backpack with some gear in it. I suppose that it was more than I brought, so I said nothing.

We started fishing and I felt at ease and quite happy…then it started. BC had gone back for a cast and tangled his line in one of the ropes that tied down the boat. After messing with it for a few minutes, I asked if he needed some help. He said thanks and then backed away. I knew that this happens and did not think much of it at the time. It was no more than 20 minutes later when I heard him cussing under his breath…I looked over and saw his line caught up in a tree about 20 yards down the shore. My mind flashed back to the previous year…did this happen last year and his dad was just here to get him out of these messes? Was I so into my own fishing that I did not realize that he was a “tangler?” Maybe this was just a fluke. I let it go, pulled his line out of the tree, tied on a new set up and continued fishing.

After he had inadvertently tangled his line around mine, two trees, a dock rope, Cody’s and been stuck on the bottom twice, I decided to call it a day. Well, I guess I had to since we were now out of hooks, sinkers and bobbers. As I walked back up to the house…all I could do was shake my head and laugh, thinking “How can his father deal with all of the ‘detangling’?” His father is a very serious angler and is very particular about fishing properly.

To sum this up, BC is now referred to as CMUWATB (Completely Messed Up Wannabe Angler Tangle Boy.) He was able to not only get his line tangled on everything possible (and a few things that I did not think was possible) making it so that we had to completely re-spool 2 rods due to no line left, but he also fell into the water 4 times, slipped and tripped in the woods and on rocks more times than I can recall. After the first few days, during which time he spent a total of about 12 hours fishing without catching anything, he announced that he was giving up on the fishing. Thank you Lord! I must have spent $50 on replacing gear over those first few days.

Scarily enough, I came very close to giving up on fishing all together fishing with this loony boy.