The More, The Merrier

By A. Sayward Lamb

As near as I can tell, fishing isn’t much different. We get all excited and make plans for weeks or even months in advance. This would be fine except we get everyone around us involved, whether it is our immediate family or close friends. We just don’t quit talking about what we are going to do or what we can expect from our trip. Will the accommodations be adequate? Will we be “roughing it” in some remote spot, or are we going to splurge on something fancy, such as a rustic cabin with a luxurious outhouse that doesn’t smell to high heaven in the heat of summer? In the end, all these things are really irrelevant as long as we have a little time for fishing and a lot of time for socializing. No doubt, a few of us go on fishing trips to fish but often times our wives, who enjoy going on these trips, had rather sit around and “do their thing” rather than sit out in a boat trying to catch fish.

Come evening the ladies and even some men, are ready to sit around a camp fire and enjoy the jokes and other funny stories that make “a laugh a minute” all evening long. There is always someone who wants to cook something on the grill or outdoor fireplace and there are generally plenty of hearty appetites to consume it all. If it isn’t comfortable sitting outside, then we move inside our campers or cabins where often times, card games take place. They are lots of fun and also can be noisy—up to the point of interfering with the beauty rest of others in nearby campsites.

Most serious fishermen believe in the old adage: “Early to bed and early to rise.” This never happens on many family-type-fishing trips. So fellas, better plan to socialize and leave the fishing for another time and another place. I’m not trying to imply that family fishing trips are not fun, because they are. I can hardly remember going on a fishing trip that wasn’t fun, except the time when one of my close fishing buddies talked me and my wife in to going on a weekend fishing trip. We played cards every day and sometimes in the evening, and I don’t recall the word “fishing” was ever mentioned while we were there. You can bet your boots that now when I get an invite from him to go fishing for a weekend, I ask a few silly questions like: “Are we going fishing?” Do I need to bring fishing poles?” “Are you taking any playing cards?”

Several years ago Milt Inman and myself organized a fishing trip up to northern Maine. We decided this would be a “men only” expedition and invited several of our family and friends from in and out of state for a weekend of fishing. Before we knew it, we had about a dozen fellows going on the trip. It took more than a few phone calls to coordinate all the necessities. We had plenty of provisions and it didn’t take long for Milt and I to realize that we were doing much more cooking, washing dishes, and policing up our area, than we were fishing. To make things worse, the weather did not cooperate and it was rainy throughout most of the weekend. I remember someone saw me cooking while I was wearing my pullover rain shirt (that came way down to my ankles). For the rest of the trip I became “Friar Tuck”. Some of the members of our party forgot that this was not a catered trip and somehow seemed to forget that they were supposed to help with chores and picking up around our area. Try as we might in as polite a way as possible, we never did get our point across. As a result, we learned that we had exceeded our numbers of fellows needed to make it enjoyable for all, and since that time we have slimmed down the number of people that we invite on our fishing excursions.

One year my wife and I were invited to go on a fly fishing trip to far northern Maine. We drove to the Canadian border, near Fort Kent, and from there went southwesterly to some remote ponds with very primitive campsites. The other couple who invited us, both were fishermen, but my wife was not interested in fishing. As a result, whenever the three of us went fishing, either at the pond where we camped or ponds nearby, my wife stayed in the camper with our Brittany dog.

I was surprised one day when we got back from fishing, to find my wife upset because some other person had driven in and parked his vehicle nearby, beside the pond. Then the man simply sat outside, apparently enjoying the beauty and solitude for several hours. I asked her if she talked to him and she said, “No I didn’t dare to even open the camper door. I felt very uncomfortable being here all alone, and I want to go home.” I suggested that the dog was with her and would have protected her. That statement fell on deaf ears and before the week was over, we had to head home leaving our friends there. I felt like a fool but in the interest of good marital relations, I felt that was the only thing for me to do. To make it worse, we were catching some fairly respectable trout in those remote ponds. Fortunately, our friends were very understanding and that is the only time I ever aborted a fishing trip ahead of our planned departure date.

Last year my wife and I went camping during Memorial Day weekend at Cathedral Pines Camping Area in Eustis, Maine. My son Jim and wife Chris also went with their camper. Jim and I had made plans to do some fly-fishing on some of the ponds in that area during the weekend. I brought my canoe on my trailer and Jim had a trailer hitch on his truck. We planned that he would tow the canoe to the ponds we wanted to fish. His problem was finding some free time away from his children and grandchildren who also were camped out there. That, along with other things that came up, made it impossible to go fishing until the last evening we were there. We didn’t arrive at the pond until nearly seven o’clock, which meant we had less than two hours to fish. Just as we were launching our canoe, another young couple came on to the landing. They told us that the trout were rising and that they had caught some fish. Soon we had our fly rods all hung up and paddled out onto the pond. Sure enough, the trout were rising and it wasn’t long before we were hooking our flies into some nice trout. I believe that at that time, both Jim and I wished we had been able to be fishing earlier in the afternoon. But it was not to be, and we did enjoy about an hour and a half of good fly-fishing.

I guess the point that I have tried to express with my words is that sometimes our plans don’t work our exactly the way we planned. Still we should be thankful for having family and friends to participate in our fishing trips, even if it means less fishing for those of us that love to fish. The memories of good times together will mean more in future years than all the fish you didn’t catch. So I say, “The more, The Merrier” and as far as the fishing goes most of the time: “Anticipation far exceeds realization!”

By A. Sayward Lamb