Alright, so decades past I worked a project in Portland Oregon for a year. I had a partner, Dan. Dan was from the East Coast Cape Cod area and relished the abundance of edibles on the shoreline there. He near needed a bib when even expounding on the delight of eating fresh catch on the beach. Now like me, Dan was getting assigned to the Great Pacific Northwest, another fishermans dream location. He was ready to eat. Me, I couldn’t care less about fish. But Dan was my partner and friend, so I went along. That means – I rowed the boat. Usually Dan caught nothing. Not being the only one with his Northwest dream, every place, every “Lost Lake” was rather long past fished out. I was ready to retire. Then we got two new partners, one from NYC who’d never even seen an actual cow in his entire life. However he fell prey to Dan’s encouragement.

So Dan with NYC guy in tow went off to test their fate in a small roadside creek. Now Dan instructed, Sssshh, don’t make noise! You’ll scare the fish and let them know they weren’t alone. Sssshh! Thus instructed, Dan proceeded down the creek some small distance away. Unexpectedly NYC boy got a nibble, then a real honest bite. What to do? What to do? Quiet, don’t alarm the fish. He remembered THAT. So he turned in Dan’s direction and quietly called out, Dan Dan look, what do I do? Dan could not hear the whispered plea, nor happened to look back that way. NYC boy hadn’t yet figured out – the jig was up! The fish knew he was on the hook. His pole bent more and more as his only initial solution was, hold the fishes head out of the water till it suffocated and gave up the struggle. Problematic. But by happy chance Dan did look and came at the run catching the handsome steelhead salmon in a net.

Mr. Fish was dinner that night. Delicious. And it was the only time I ever regretted not going on one of Dan’s numerous fishing adventures!
 
 
Oh yea, sometimes it snows here in Seattle Washington.