Fish On! No wait, I just caught a trophy inner tube.

Ah yes, spring in northeast Ohio. A beautiful warm sunny day after a long, miserable, gray, bone chilling winter. And that was just Christmas. Hey, I'm here all week folks, don't forget to take care of your wait staff. Anyway, on such a day as this, the sap starts to rise, the birds begin to sing and the local steelhead send the word to the entire ichthyological community to brace themselves for the annual spawning and Bob's comedy fishing act season. The fever generally starts around mid January when internet articles and magazines talk about how ridiculously easy it is to catch a dump truck full of spawning steelhead, in the Grand River and attached feeder creeks. These articles are of course written by sadistic outdoorsmen suffering from terminal Pinochioitis. Either that or they are congressmen.
A small fortune is invested in lures, baits and other nonsensical equipment designed purely for the amusement of aquatic life everywhere.
Fish #1 to Fish #2: "Holy crap, Joe, would you look at that very realistic and tantalizing fluorescent orange, rubberized worm pulling a windmilling steel blade with hooks coming out of it! Tell me that's not a meal!" Fish #1 is obviously brain dead, or most likely Fishes 1 and 2 soon float to the top of the water as they have both just died laughing. And that's just the beginning of the fun. I can tell you that the local fish have enjoyed watching me for the last few years, trying to land taunting schools of steelhead, most of them halfway above water to get a better look, as I toss lure after lure, line after line into tree branches, shrubbery and the occaisional passing cow. But am I deterred. Not at all. Every spring I spend more and more money to entertain more and more fish before ice sets in.
For example, a year or two ago I came up with the brilliant idea that a set of chest waders would be just the ticket for getting me closer to where the fish were lurking in anticipation of a free lunch. I used these waders once each of the last two springs. Total fish caught? Zip, nada, goose egg, none. I really should have just set fire to my money and been done with it. I have only been talking so far about my luck, if you can call it that, fishing the local creeks. We haven't even began to get into the various, nicks, cuts, bruises and hemorrhaging lacerations endured for this, uh, "relaxation." It is sometimes so bad that the local Red Cross chapter sends out volunteers to follow me around for "tourniquet practice."
This year however, I decided to up the humiliation ante. And don't think the fish didn't appreciate it. This year I decided on this glorious spring day, to put on those chest waders and get into some real fishing waters. And by "real fishing waters", I mean those places where all the fly fishermen, with the lures attached to their hats, and their deftly casting of fly lines into the holes where the fish will be when they are not otherwise preoccupied with the "Bob Show." I'm talking about the spot where Ellison Creek and the Grand River merge. This was a mistake.
To get to the spot you have to wade through the relatively calm waters of the creek to the spot where the river meets and where in most springs, the Grand River is about as calm as Niagara Falls. Picture if you will, the bowling ball in waders, clutching his rod with white knuckles, not so much "wading" as sloshing, sliding, lurching and stumbling through the water, much as a one year old might look on ice skates. Only less stable.
Incredibly I managed to find a spot in about thigh high water not occupied by the rest of steelhead anglers whose number equaled roughly that of the population of China. Oh and by the way, if you want to experience an incredible sensation of vertigo, and who doesn't, be sure to look down at the flowing water as you try to inch your way to your spot. When I finally got to my spot I started casting my lure, which was guaranteed on the package to be "snag proof" and promptly caught a submerged boulder. Come to find out that "snag proof" actually means "snag resistant." Damn lawyers. But I digress. Upon freeing my line I made several more casts toward the river bank, the water rushing and swirling around my legs so that I felt about as stable as Foster Brooks on a bender.
About this time, I come to find that the company that made my waders and that had guaranteed a lifetime "angling pleasure in our leakproof vulcanized waders," actually meant "leak resistant." You really haven't lived until you find yourself in the roiling spring waters of the Grand River, just after ice out, feeling the life ooze out of your right leg. I somehow lurched and slogged my way to the bank of the river alive, and staggered back to my car and died.
I really don't plan to go back out today, but I have heard that steelhead have been spotted holding their cigarette lighters out of the water asking for an encore.

Love
Dad