The unlikely bait that hooked us on fishing

“Why is it whenever a tackle box slips out of your hand, it never falls right side up and closed?”

My kids are constantly quoting their fishing mentor to me. They are still ribbing me about “fisherman’s math,” since the time I tried to round up the size of a small-mouth bass that my son caught from 11.5 inches to an even 12, suggesting I might as well call it 16 inches while I’m at it.

They have learned about life on the high seas – or rather the burbling creeks and placid lakes, from Patrick McManus. Not a neighbor or friend, but an essayist born in 1933. He wrote humorous essays about his life spent hunting, fishing and camping. His first book, and our introduction to his writing, A Fine and Pleasant Misery, sums up so much of camping that we were laughing before we opened the first page.

For years we assumed this was his only book. Published in 1978, we had found the musty paperback in my father-in-law’s office when they were downsizing. When it eventually occurred to me to google McManus, I was astonished to discover that he had published over two dozen books, many of them collections of his writings for Outdoor Life and Field & Stream.

Since many of the audiobooks are available to borrow via Hoopla, family car rides got much better after that. Together we learned that there is an art to falling while carrying a fully loaded frame pack, that trailer lights will never work twice in a row, and that the trip doesn’t really start until plans go awry.

Of course, kids are impressionable, and eventually they too wanted to go fishing. I hadn’t fished since I was eight, so we spent time with Grandpa YouTube learning what we could about knot tying, fish identification, and how to get those fish to chomp on your hook. Things escalated quickly and somehow a rowboat got involved.

As you read this, assume that I am bundled up, next to a beautiful Hudson Valley or Delaware Valley waterway, hot cocoa in the thermos to warm me up on a cold fall morning. With my children by my side, I quietly contemplate all the curse words I know while untangling one of my kid’s fishing lines for the sixth time.