The Life of Riley

[Riley Smith]

We've not had time to relax at the Labrot House and the beach lately. Grandchildren that get off the school bus at our house and a daughter building a house figure into that equation; nothing to do but live through it. So the property needed a grass cutting and we headed that way, armed with the tractor and weedeater. And the camera....I always take the camera.

There wasn't a card in the camera we discovered when trying to take a picture of a tug out on the ICW. Oh well, the light wasn't very conducive to photographs anyway. The rain that had been promised for days was finally edging closer and afar off we head thunder a couple of times.  So, nothing to do but fire up the tractor and cut grass, which happened without incident. It's a real bummer to go to all that trouble and then break a belt or have some other catastrophe strike. Last year it happened and took me a week to get the tractor back up again. And all the time the grass was growing. You can't understand that if you don't live where you can SEE the grass growing.

We finally got finished cutting grass as the sun began to sink low behind the clouds. After drinking a beer on the porch and thinking it over, I decided to try the fishing rod. I didn't hold much hope because I didn't like the looks of the water color and couldn't really tell whether the tide was rising, falling, or static because of the wind. That wind lost me the first lure on the pilings of the old pier and it is still sitting there taunting me. I could have got the kayak out and retrieved it but it was too much trouble for a cheap lure, so I just changed to a spoon.

Some of the branch kinfolks were having a birthday party down the beach a ways, so I was casting to that hormonal beat young folks find so appealing. It was hard to slow down and fish correctly with that sound track but I finally managed to get in some frame of mind mirroring what the fish might be interested in. The lure was old and not as shiny as I like but at least the hooks were very sharp. Cast the spoon and bump, bump, bump the rod tip making the lure rise to the top where the minimal light would reflect of the shiny spoon and make it appear to be a skittering baitfish.

Bam! It worked, and an undersized speckled trout fell for it. So the first speck of the year was landed and returned to the water.  And after sweeping the front lawn with the sweeper, another one that was probably legal hit the spoon, too. The first two speckled trout of the year; always a good omen. That spoon is lethal in the right circumstances. I use Johnson spoons exclusively. And I can watch you for 20 seconds and tell if you've ever fished one or not. The beer was cold, there were fish caught, and the lawn looked good. Our Friday night date was pretty nice too, with a good meal at the local Mexican place.

And so we headed back home to Wolf Ridge happy and tired. The old house is always good for the soul. There were trade-offs in resurrecting the old place but there are also bonuses. You live every day and you gotta make it count is my philosophy.

And I did 

Riley