A Couple of Dum Basses

I dunno what it is, but I've been fishing a lot lately. I think it's called a hobby or something.

Yesterday, Carl Jr., Rico, and I went off to Riverbend Ponds to fish after work. This is the location at which that famous story Cooler of Death occurred. This is the first time Rico has joined us for the after-work fishing, as he finally found his fishing license in the dryer.

I was raring to go, as I had a fistful of new lures that I wanted to try out. In the roughly 1.5 hours of fishing, I caught 4 fish, all with the same lure. Oh, did I mention I have a new favorite lure? The Rapala Jointed Shad Rap in black over silver. It was 3 bluegills (one of which was decent-sized) and some kind of bass that was 8-10". Rico also caught a couple of these bass, and we spent a long time arguing over what they actually were.

They had characteristics of both a smallmouth and a largemouth. In particular, they had a small mouth and the spunk of a smallmouth, but they had a horizontal spotted stripe along the side much like a largemouth. I believe that with enough googling these turn out to probably be the spotted bass, but reports differ as to whether these exist in Colorado or not, though I gather from these guys that they do.

I had to pick up HannahC from gymnastics at 7:00, so I dutifully set my alarm and packed up in time to get her. As I was leaving, Carl, Jr. inquired, "What time is it?"

"10 to seven."

"Oh."

Then he kept fishing.

Today, as the three of us were heading to lunch, Carl, Jr. said, "Soooo...I'm not allowed to go fishing after work anymore for a while."

Apparently, he fished until 7:30, then strolled into the old house and was confronted with some version of the age-old, "Where in the hell were you?" that a married-with-children man gets when he comes home an hour late for dinner and didn't so much as call, and being a fairly innocent soul, he responded with something to the effect of, "I was fishing," rather than lying through his teeth like he should have done.

So now Carl can't come fishing anymore.

And then, as luck would have it, Rico said, "Yeah, I got in trouble, too." He then proceeded to tell a story about how his girlfriend never cooks, but she decided to cook yesterday, and he didn't know. Except that she called him on his cell a bunch of times to tell him, but he didn't answer or listen to the voice mail cuz he was fishing and, not being married, he has no obligation to be at anyone's beck and call.

Which means that of the three of us, I'm now the responsible and reliable one.

I'm pretty sure I'll crack under the pressure presently.