I’m a horrible fisherman, at least when it comes to fishing in Wyoming. When I fish in other states, I do fine. But I can’t catch a fish to save my life in my native waters.
That’s OK, though. I don’t eat fish very often, so I’m a catch-and-release fisherman by rule. If I don’t catch any, I don’t have to worry about taking them off the hook. My inability to catch a fish saves a lot of time.
My boys usually fish circles around me. While I’m busy casting and reeling, the boys are pulling fish after fish off their lines. My wife usually does, too. It wouldn’t bother me, but all three of them see fit to rub my nose in the fact that I’m the guy who writes about fishing all the time, but they’re the only ones who ever catch any fish.
But their luck hit a wall a few weekends ago. We went up to Mirror Lake in the Snowy Range to do a little fishing. When we walked up to the crystal-clear water, we saw 10 or 12 little cutthroats zipping around in the shallows. I figured we could entice a couple of them to gobble up a worm or a spinner. Heck, even I might be able to catch one.
My hopes were raised by another family a hundred yards or so up the bank. They were pulling fish out with nearly every cast, so I thought the denizens of the deep were hungry. It turns out they might have been, but my luck had rubbed off on everyone in my party, and nobody got so much as a single nibble.
The only bright spot was when Logan, the youngest, netted a dead fish that floated past.
I told the boys to get used to it. I think the inability to catch a fish is in our genes.
