“Cheating is a choice, not a mistake.” (anonymous)
I just got
back from a quick trip to Colorado. I
was able to spend one day in the mountains fishing with my brothers-in-law.
On a gorgeous
morning, temperature in the 50’s, aspens at the height of their color, we drove
to a beautiful little lake. However,
after 3 hours of fly-fishing I had hooked only 3 fish, which was 3 fish more
than either of my in-laws. We paused for lunch and shared our frustration. So, we decided on a plan in order to make
sure that the afternoon would be more rewarding
We went to a trout farm off of Interstate-285 and
paid to fish. Yes, a trout farm, the kind
of place you take your children when you want to guarantee that, for a price, they
will catch a fish. The price we
negotiated for 2 hours of fly-fishing was not so unreasonable. We agreed to use barbless hooks in order to
minimize harm to the fish. We agreed with
the owner that we would catch-and-release any of the fish that we hooked.
For 2 hours we caught (and released) fish after fish, big fish and little fish, rainbow
trout and brown trout. They bit on dry
flies. They bit on terrestrials. They
bit on nymphs. They bit on
streamers. In fact, at one point I got
so bored with catching trout that I tried to find a lure that they would not
bite. After unsuccessfully trying
half-a-dozen different lures, I finally found the lure that caught no fish. Trout
don’t go for hot-pink marabou jigs. No
longer bored, I went back to the business of catching more trout.
When we got
home and described our day of fishing, the wives seemed to think that going to
the trout farm was cheating, like going to the zoo to hunt for big game. Assume they were correct. Assume that catching fish at the trout farm was
sort-of cheating. It doesn’t change the
fact that the afternoon was a whole lot more fun than the morning. So, shame on me, I cheated. Who says that cheaters
never prosper?
