We Don't Forget

Knot to Complain or Anything

Fishergarten glanced nervously around the dimly lit restaurant. The FisherStranger opposite took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled slowly, thinking, letting the smoke curl upward into the hanging lamp with the faux-Tiffany shade. No one dared to tell him about local smoking ordinances. He just wasn’t the type.

“Where do you want this to happen?” he finally asked.

“Eleven Mile Reservoir.”

“When?”

“On a Thursday. It’s not so crowded.”

“It won’t be cheap,” he said, squinting. “You got what I told you?”

“Of course,” Fishergarten said. “Not on me, though.”

He briefly bared his teeth in a smile. Then, harshly, “Lady, when I tie up a loose end on something terminal, it stays tied. There’s no undoing it. You sure that’s what you want?”

“Yes,” Fishergarten said firmly. “I just don’t want to do it myself.”

“I want 70 percent by the weekend,” he added, “and the rest after.”

“Done!” Fishergarten was relieved. Finally, she had found a way around a tiresome logistic. But that night, FisherSpouse was less enthused.

“You did what?” he asked quietly.

 

“Well,” Fishergarten said. “You know how we spend every

living second of our spare time practicing Perfection Loops that aren’t and Trilene knots that don’t? I just hired someone to meet us at Eleven Mile and tie our terminal tackle on for us. For a few bills, he can stay the entire day and tie knots while we fish. Win-win, right?”

FisherSpouse looked a little pale and, picking up his phone, left the table. Later, Fishergarten thought she heard him talking, something about police or fraud, she wasn’t clear which. It was understandable why he might get all knotted up at the new hire, though. FisherSpouse ties his own knots. And likely, he had forgotten what happens with a novice knotter.

It was a windy and chilly March day as Fishergarten dug through FisherSpouse’s tackle box, seeking, as was her custom, a replacement lure. She found a blue beauty, slightly scuffed from generations of loving fisher-use. With frozen fingers, she carefully pulled it out and began to tie it onto her line.

“Want some help with that knot?” FisherSpouse asked.

“No, I got this,” Fishergarten said, recalling pretty much the knot-tying section of “Fishing for Dummies.”

Fishergarten secured the knot, then reeled up a little line and drew back. She brought the rod around and cast. Distantly, she saw the gleaming blue lure arc gracefully and plop into the water.

“Holy cow!” she said to FisherSpouse. “Check it out – I’m halfway across the lake!”

Excited, she began to reel in the slack. And reel. And then, the line ended, in an empty way. She looked at FisherSpouse. “My uncle gave me that,” he said.

Evidently, Fishergarten would need to conduct more knot-tying trials. Previous testing in her dining-room-table-like lab showed that knot-tying was much like published academic studies in psychology -- she had surprising results that she could not always replicate. But her testing differed in that reducing line friction meant she had to spit on her work. A lot.

Discouraged, she finally sought out the experts. Sitting in FisherSis’s kitchen, she poured out her frustration, even as she poured in a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

“I just don’t get it,” she said to FisherSis and FisherSIL, who between them had coached generations of Colorado FisherKids. “I just can’t learn the knots. Tell me, FisherSages, how do I tie a knot that holds? And is more sanitary?”

Silently, FisherSis grabbed her rod, threaded the line through a snap, and tied five overhand knots to hold it on. 

“There,” she said, tightening the final one. “That oughta hold.”

“Wait,” said Fishergarten, marveling at the seeming simplicity. “You can do that?”

FisherSis and FisherSIL glanced at each other. “We just go to fish and enjoy the scenery,” FisherSis said. “We have fun.”

“Oh,” said Fishergarten. She would need some time to process that. She also made a mental note to maybe cancel the research funding she’d raised.

So what about you, FisherFriends? What knots tie you in knots? Which do you favor? Tell us in the comments section below.

Polling Before Trolling: What Do Fish Want

“Not in this lifetime, Mom, I won’t be your campaign strategist,” said NonFisherSon firmly.

“If it’s about the fundraising, I already gave all that back,” Fishergarten started.

“First, there is no actual office involved in what you’re planning,” he said. “And second, you are making a mockery of the American election system.”

Fishergarten let that one slide. Besides, she had expected this response. The strategic parallels between a political campaign and a Colorado fishing trip may not be readily apparent, especially to a nonfisherperson.

“OK,” she explained, patiently. “Consider this. How does a politician hook votes in a particular place? Right! The candidate tests the waters, checks the terrain and occupants, gauges what locals like or need, then casts the proper bait or lure to reel in the votes. We only need to apply the elements of a successful campaign to fishing. What’s not to like?”

NonFisherSon stared a minute. “No,” he said.

Fishergarten understood. Her idea might be a bit murky. But the parallels were clear. “Fishing for Dummies” was right. Fishing was going to take more than throwing a wormed-up

Poll results from untested (by Fishergarten) data

line in the water. It would entail careful strategizing to calculate which fish resided where, what each one liked and how to present those variables to that fish so it would bite already. She would, in effect, straw poll the fish and learn which ones liked which lures.

To start, Fishergarten chose Chatfield Reservoir in Littleton, mainly because it was close by on a Thursday afternoon. But this reservoir – one that she had always dismissed as a flood-control measure – claims some seriously big fish. According to “2016 Colorado Fishing” book from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, “1. Min. size for largemouth and smallmouth bass is 15 inches long. 2. Bag and min. size for walleye is 3, 18 inches long. 3. Only 1 walleye longer than 21 inches may be taken per day.”

When Fishergarten crunched that data, it indicated that Chatfield holds large bass and walleye, which sounded far cooler than Fishergarten’s customary “I can’t tell the fish from the lure” size. But what might entice these independent and undecided fish?

A FisherGoogle search landed a few suggestions, like this, this, this and this. 

Fishergarten chose a two-inch feathered popper, mainly

The elusive popper plug pick

because it was in FisherSpouse’s tackle box and looked fun.

“Wait, that’s one of my fav-- … ok … never mind … I guess,” said FisherSpouse.

“Don’t worry,” Fishergarten assured him. “I got this.”

According to “Fishing for Dummies,” Fishergarten’s popper plug pick would float on the water’s surface, while Fishergarten used a jerk-pause-jerk motion to replicate the slow death throes of a real bait fish and generate enough noise to replicate a full-throated convention heckle.

“It’s pretty advanced,” FisherSpouse said doubtfully. “Cast it … ok, now … point at it, then pull … no, to the side … no, point … not like that … to the side.”

To be considerate and respectful of FisherSpouse’s fishing space, Fishergarten moved down the bank a bit, and found a secluded spot.

“Watch that tree,” FisherSpouse hollered. 

Three views of the treacherous terminal tackle graveyard

Fishergarten turned away, drew back and cast. Instantly, the lure caught the wind, flying up to the left and over a branch. There it stopped and dangled, twisting in a breeze. She reeled it in a little, successfully lodging the lure in the wood.

Fishergarten considered her options. Signs of fisherwreck lingered in those branches, a mass of tangled monofilament here, a solitary lead weight there, and a cold March wind rattling the branches. Clearly, she had stumbled upon a terminal tackle graveyard.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, FisherSpouse appeared. He

Fishergarten's lure-retrieval options

took the rod, reeled tightly, then drew it up the line and let it ping back against the rod. The lure dropped. FisherSpouse cut the line and grabbed the floating lure from where it fell into the water. 

“I saw that on the Fishful Thinker show,” he said curtly.

Quietly, FisherSpouse hand-carried his lure back to the tackle box and tucked it carefully into its nest.

It appeared Fishergarten’s straw poll had ended for now, with inconclusive results. But she is open to more experienced persons. So FisherFriends, the polls are still open, now let’s hear it. What’s your vote for best bait for which fish and where? Let us know in the comments section below.

In-Terminable Tackle Talk

“Wait,” said FisherSpouse in that guarded way he has developed lately. “You’re starting an LLC?”

“Actually,” Fishergarten said, “You, me and Kickstarter are. I’m working on the project page now.”

Fishergarten is almost sure she told FisherSpouse about the business startup, but maybe that was still on her to-do list. She can’t quite remember. She let out the line.

Belongs in the Louvre

“So, we know from ‘Fishing for Dummies’ that terminal tackle ‘refers to the equipment that accompanies your line on its way to the fish.’ It’s often tarted up with bait or lures to coax the fish into biting the hook. With me so far?”

“I think I’ve got it,” he said dryly.

“So imagine you’re all excited about the Walleye you heard about near the dam on Rifle Gap reservoir last summer,” Fishergarten continued. “You grab your gear from the car and pick your way down the dam’s cauterizingly hot rocks to reach the water’s edge. There you are, perched precariously in your melting trailrunners, wishing you had your wader boots and feeling faint from the heat, when suddenly, dang, you realize you brought a coldwater-fish potluck instead of the warm-water Walleye menu you meant to pack. Those Walleye are no doubt teaming right out of your line of vision, grumpy and hungry while you’re empty-handed.”

“That doesn’t happen when you actually plan a fishing trip,” he said.

“Next, imagine a truck pulls up at that moment with all the warm-water terminal tackle and bait you could want. Well, that truck is us. With a little Kickstarter crowd funding, we can have our lake-specific TerminalTackle2Go fleet circling Colorado lakes by ice-off.”

She waited.

“Here’s the artist’s rendering of the truck,” she added helpfully.

 

FisherSpouse scanned the artistry, and Fishergarten thought she heard him mumble something about Terminal Tacky2Go, but she couldn’t be sure.

Clearly, she was fishing in the wrong water and would need to work on that line at some point. Instead, Fishergarten temporarily turned her attention to building a tackle box instead of a business.

Her research showed that that fishing line has active roles in

Not called bobbers--have some dignity

how one uses tackle and bait, but it’s best to stay simple when starting out. Three basic lines will work, but only one – monofilament – for beginners. If she is reading this right, that line is measured by test and to avoid test anxiety, she should get the right weight for her rod and reel. Fishergarten’s 12.84 came with 6 lb test, meaning it can reel in a 6 lb fish without breaking, assuming Fishergarten ever catches anything heavier than one ounce.

It’s the terminal tackle and the bait, though, that comprise the operational stuff. Fishergarten hasn’t shopped much yet, but has spent a lot of time learning the lingo and tutoring herself in tackle by poring through product catalogs, like this, this, and this.

Per Fishing for Dummies: "Don't chew lead sinkers."

Meantime, Fishergarten has practiced casting and reeling with exactly one lure, not including the three she left in Twin Lakes, Colorado, a.k.a. “The Lake of Hidden and Hookable Rocks.”

“Not so hidden if you pay attention,” FisherSpouse said peevishly. His eyes grew misty and distant, remembering the lures. “Those were some real beauties.”

“Well,” Fishergarten said comfortingly, “We can help. Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen to the next unsuspecting couple. Just sign right here and those TT2Go trucks are up and rolling.”

Next week, we’ll cover the make of the lake. But what about you, FisherFriends? What’s your bait? Use the comments section to throw us a few lines on what you packed into your inaugural tackle box.