I make my living partly by listening to fish stories so I have become fairly good at it.

Most fishermen are addicted to boring details of just how they did what, and since most of their friends aren't dependent upon somebody else's story for their bread and butter, they learn to smile and think of something else.

At the same time, the inside dope on where the fishing is good or bad is much in demand. Many times I've had somebody ask me how I did here or there and listen avidly until he had the essentials. Then he'd almost audibly click me off as I went into detail. But until last week it never really happened in the family--I think.

I have been experimenting with a fly rod lash-up for bass. The idea was to catch them off the bottom in fairly deep water and it's something I know very little about. My wife Debie tied up some special-order flies for me the other night and took great interest in the project although she wasn't going with me the next day.

I got up well before dawn and was on the job while mist was still on the lake. I worked hard for three hours but never had a strike on the bottom scratchers. When I came in I thought Debie showed special interest.

"No," I told her, "I didn't do any good at all with those gadgets, but just as I was getting ready to leave I saw a pretty respectable bass strike in the edge of some weeds and I put on a popping bug and caught him. It was a long cast but I put it right on the money."

A few minutes later I heard her talking to someone on the phone.

"Naw," Debie said, "he got up at 5:00 a.m., and went to that lake at daylight but the trip was a flop. He never saw a fish. He never had a strike."

It was hard to believe that my own wife would have turned me off in the middle of my first paragraph. That was when my neighbor, Jack Gowdy, came over. Jack has heard a lot of fish stories but he was anxious to know how I did.

"No good at all with the bottom flies," I said as a moved back to square one. "I fished them for three hours and never had a strike. But then I saw a fish take something right at the edge of some weeds and I threw a popping bug at him. It was a long cast, but for once I dropped it right on target and he grabbed it as if he had been waiting all morning."

Jack talked for a few more minutes about snipe hunting and sea trout and then said he had to go.

"I'm sorry you didn't see any fish at all after all that trouble," he said as he left.

Next time I am going to say: "No, I didn't do any good with those experimental lures. Worked hard with them too. But just as I was getting ready to leave I saw a big strike and I cast a bug to it. A big bass took it and I estimated it as a new world's record, perhaps as much as 30 pounds. But just as I was about to land him he was struck by a hammerhead shark longer than the boat and I'll never know how that shark got into that little freshwater pond."

I'll bet they won't hear the last part at all.