I'll bet you first learned to whistle in the spring. That's what spring is all about --a time to begin things. A time to do something new, to try something different. The time to learn to whistle, the time to learn to throw a fly or tie one. The time to go buy a new rod, different lures, and to think about new places. The time to break in a new hat, or repaint the boat.
It's time to look up some old friends--that big bass by the spring run, the perch off the rocks, the pickerel that lives by the dock. Or make some new ones--the surf-running stripers, the blue-water marlin, tidewater redfish, or gulf-water dolphins.
Fish little for shellcrackers and crappies. Fish big for muskies or northerns. Take a nap by the brook, or roar around with twin "50s." Do whatever you like--that's what I like about fishing...and fishermen.
If your year begins with the first wet line--you're a fisherman. If you tuck away a pail of shiners behind a 20-pound tackle box--you're a fisherman. If pork rind smells like perfume and moonlight reminds you to try poppers--you're a fisherman. If you remember the date and weight of your big one--and forget your wife's birthday--you're a fisherman. And if you'll fish in a storm and won't mow the lawn in a mist--I'll bet you learned to whistle in the spring.
Right now it's beginning time. The world is new again, and everything is waiting. It's time to say "Get the skillet out, honey, I'm going fishing." If you hope this is the year that they'll be bigger and more of them (and really don't care), you're a fisherman. And I'm a fisherman too.
This story originally appeared in Hill Country by Gene Hill. Copyright (c) 1974-78 Gene A. Hill. All rights reserved.
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