Fishing For Compliments

I've never fished. I never want to fish. Although I can kind of understand the appeal, I don't really get fishing. I can understand fishing when you keep and cook whatever you catch but when you catch something and throw it back, then the whole process is lost on me.

Fishing out at sea for marlin and shark can be exciting I guess but I still think it's all a bit one sided given the equipment used these days. I'm sure fishermen would totally disagree and point to the numerous fishing trips where they come back empty handed. Well maybe if they stopped throwing them back it would help !

Anyhoo, fishing is popular here in Florida for obvious reasons and even this part of the state is not exempt. As I type this, I'm sitting in the 5th wheel with my feet up on my recliner footrest and looking out the side window at my neighbour who is sorting out the fishing gear on his boat. Well it's only 11am and I tend to ease into my days here. I've already had my battle with nature this morning but it wasn't fishing......it was clearing the ants out of the dishes that were mistakenly left unwashed in the sink overnight.

Leaving unopened food or dirty dishes around for any length of time is a huge no-no here. The word goes out and soon a Disneyesque line of ants appears and makes a beeline (or an antline) for whatever they can cart off back to their hive or hutch or hill or whatever. We were quite sure we knew how to deal with the little critters (which thankfully aren't biters) as the poison of choice usually sorts them out quickly - either they've become immunute to it or else they're taking their own sweet time dying.

We asked around and were told that putting down strips of Bounce, yes the common dryer sheets, would get rid of them. We tried that and all it did was create a zillion ants that suddenly had a lovely smell of spring freshness. Don't you just hate it when nature adapts ! I can imagine them sitting around 'the hill' each night gargling down the so called poison and discussing how great they all smell now. I may send this off as a plotline to DreamWorks for their follow up movie. I'm sure Woody Allen could do something amusing with the vocals.

In the meantime I had to do things manually and facing a sink full of dirty dishes covered in a sea of little moving bodies was not something I'd recommend first thing in the morning. But ever fearless and without any sort of gun, bow and arrow, rod or other weapon of mass destruction, I cleared the lot and sent hundreds of God's creatures to a watery end. Actually being in a trailer which has what's known as a holding tank under the kitchen, the journey to their watery end in this case was not a long one. They'll probably regroup, dry out and be back later today.

Maybe that's the appeal of fishing. Them against us. The eternal struggle to prove we are top of the food chain. Circle of life. Man against nature. Getting away from the wife for a few hours.
All of the above probably.

Yesterday I went back to my pier end gazebo (see previous posts) and watched 2 fishermen doing their thing a few yards away. There seemed to be a lot of casting but no catching. Not a lot of talking either. That seems to be part of the deal too.

At first I wasn't sure if they'd camouflaged their boat to try and fool the fish. Fishermen can be so sneaky. My vivid imagination kicked in again and I could just see the fish collecting on 'my' side of the boat and talking amongst themselves. "Hey, guys, this side isn't camouflaged and look....it's a boat ! There are two of those humans up there trying to tempt us with those nasty worms we hate. Lets clear off and have lunch at Long John Silvers"

Later last night I stayed around just long enough to get this shot of the moon over the pier.

It wasn't my best shot but I wasn't hanging around to try for a better one. Once bitten, twice shy and all that. Actually 30 times bitten but we'll not bring that up again. They don't itch anymore and should be all gone in another week.

Unlike the ants.