Actually, my last post was somewhat inaccurate. I did not recently learn that my fishing skills are no good. I have known that for quite some time. I was merely reminded of this fact because I have spent time recently performing actions that look like fishing. What I've really been doing is throwing lures in the water and sometimes bringing them back out of the water.

My wife and I went fishing at a local pond a few days ago. She had to work late that day, so we only got about an hour of fishing in. I got a couple of nibbles on my line as well as one good bite that probably should have resulted in a fish. She got skunked.

A couple days after that I went fishing at another local pond, but didn't manage to do much but step in the water, lose my most expensive lure, and look like a nincompoop every time I tried to cast. I'm still getting the hang of casting, which is a sad sad thing, especially when the pond is near a road and everyone can drive by and see how genetically inferior I am as a man who was born without the gene that gives you the automatic casting ability. I got the "cast like a blindfolded child swinging a bat at a pinata" gene.

Anyway, I am stubborn about this fishing thing, so I am going to keep going fishing all summer, and hopefully by the end I'll have some pictures of me in the presence of actual fish. I have had a good time going to the store and buying different lures and whatnot. In fact, I'm expecting that my wife will soon be mentioning that certain purchases are probably not in the budget right now and maybe I should hold off on filling the tackle box until I start filling up the frying pan with some fish.

I read somewhere that the reason lures come in so many shapes, sizes, and colors is not because the fish can tell the difference, but because they are designed to lure money from the wallets of anglers. I will readily admit that I am attracted by all the shiny spoons and jigs and spinners.