His wife said he was possessed by the fishing bug. Not a day went by since he retired to the lake house they built decades ago that he didn't shove off in his small boat right at sunrise with rods and reels, a cooler, and a favorite cigar. He valued the silence on the lake and therefore didn't have a motor, just oars to move him around to a few choice spots where catching fish was guaranteed. He seldom kept what he caught, throwing them back to grow larger and give him a better fight should they meet again.
The years passed, and he kept fishing, catching his fair share of lake trout and other species, all of which were put back to grow. Occasionally hed see another boat on the lake, usually on weekends when the weekend warriors drank beer and talked loud enough to scare any fish for miles. They would get close enough to him and hold up stringers of dead or dying fish, a few barely legal in size.
He would pull up his anchor and row away as quickly as he could, as the sight of them made him sick to his stomach. He knew they wouldn't eat what they caught, as it was all about bragging rights to them, and he bet that when they called it a day, they tied up at the dock and threw the fish away.
He had an idea he shared with his wife, who agreed it would be a valuable and expensive lesson for the weekend warriors. He had a good friend who worked for Fish and Game, and he told him about the weekend fish slayers and that he thought they needed a quick lesson in fishing etiquette. The warden hid around a bend until he saw firsthand how they treated their catches, like letting them roll around the deck of the boat until they died from lack of oxygen. Or how one guy put a lit cigarette into a fish's mouth and watched as it looked like the fish was smoking. He had had enough and hit the blue lights as he sped towards the weekend warriors.
He tied off to the boat and pulled out his violations book, asking for ID from everyone. " What's wrong?" one guy asked. "All we're doing is having some fun."Yeah, me to the warden replied and began writing tickets. Seeing as how all four of you violated the law, I'm going to give each of you the same fine. He handed each of them a ticket with a two-thousand-dollar fine.
What happens next he asked his friend. Well, they will have an interesting ride home trying to explain to their wives how their bank accounts are two thousand dollars less. But is what you did legal, charging them so much? Oh, I'll wait a few days and resend the tickets, giving them some time to realize not abiding by the law can be costly. I'll drop the fines to one hundred each, but one thing I'm fairly certain of, you won't be seeing them on the lake for a while. And you can go on fishing in peace and quiet.
About two months later, as he was sitting in his boat, a line out and his favorite cigar nearing the end, he felt his line grow taut, and he grabbed his rod and began what would later be told over breakfast tables across the county, the biggest fight of his life was on. He fought the giant for an hour, his small boat being pulled right alongside it, until finally it wore itself down, allowing him to net the biggest lake trout that had ever been caught in the lake. He carefully removed the hook, and with a few rubs on its belly, the giant swam away to be caught another day.
Mike 2026
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