I recently started fishing a junction point of the agricultural waterway at the point where it crosses the 80. There’s a big, open area of water where I WAS SURE there would be fishies. I’ve been there 5 times with different setups each time; not even one bite. Are there fish in the murky trench? Why yes there are, and large ones at that. I’m not a catch and kill guy, I just enjoy the sport of temporarily mutilating a fish and then sparing its life to be tormented by some other human at some point later on down the line. I don’t argue it’s wholesomeness… because it’s truly horrible. However, it is also primal, instinctual, and a trigger of a sort. Some little animal part of my brain expands when I am trying to trick a fish into biting my artificial lure. I think about the crankbait swimming through the water, or the spinnerbait sparkling. There is an art to how I use the topwater popper, and how I can simulate an injured baitfish with my “moves.” I especially like being on the bottom, and feeling all the mud, rocks, plants and other things that the bait bumps into on its way back to me. A stasis, or, euphoria pervades, with imagination as the great engine of imagery. I don’t like killing and eating the flesh of what I have killed. My Dad and Mom’s generation are still really into that sort of thing. It connects them to themselves somewhere deep, like fishing kinda does for me.

The story is about persistence. My subjects will only be able to elude me for as long as the mystery of what they find interesting remains as such. A great thing I have learned in life is that if you concentrate a great deal of dedication onto something (whether it be a full time job, or a project, or a relationship [or catching a stubborn fish]) you can almost certainly count on getting it, or at least some part of it, over time. The passage of days is key, because impatience leads to frustration and burnout. Just like slowly dragging that Texas rig through the muck, all things develop in time and with the application of determination. I am determined to get mentally healthy, me a part of NAMI Sacramento and live the rest of my life loving the people that matter and taking care of those who need help. Sounds like a pretty fantastic thing to be dedicated to, no?

Fishing and achieving lofty goals is about going slow, and making sure you take more steps forward than steps backward overall. Perseverance is driving the hammer of will to the nail of reality. Be the master of your own domain, as they might say in pop culture. Keep smacking the shit out of reality until it takes a more desirable shape. No body gets anything done in this world by pooping the bed and not going anywhere. Get off the pooped-on bed and let’s go do some shit!