The Old Man and The Dill Pickle

My angling adventures prove I should stick to charades at the cottage

For reasons that are largely inexplicable, our neighbours Gord and Ann invited me up for a weekend at their island cottage again this summer.

I say this because in the past I have broken pretty much every cottage etiquette rule, including: Bringing enough luggage for two weeks, drinking all the host’s gin, making fun of their dogs and openly cheating at charades.

Some of these next, further infractions are debatable, but I may have also threatened to: Go nude swimming, while still at the marina; blurted out, “What kind of cottage doesn’t have olives? What is this, Soviet Russia?” and complained about the long boat rides Gord takes us on each year.

I may have said, “If I wanted to be slammed around while breathing gas fumes for two hours, I would have picked a fight at the Cayuga Speedway” or something to that effect. It was hard to hear me over the motor noise.

In any case, some people have suggested I am not a good cottage guest, so my best guess is that Gord and Ann quite like my wife, who is charming and very well-mannered. In fact, Gord has, over a beer on the dock, quietly said to me, “You’re lucky your wife is so great, otherwise you couldn’t get yourself invited to an Amway party.”

Anyway, again this year I brought my fishing rod, tackle box and — with unusual optimism — a landing net.

I also consulted with my friend Wade who is an expert angler and even went up to Bill’s Bait, a terrific little tackle shop on the Mountain for some advice and more lures, jigs, hooks and plastic worms. I mention all this for several reasons. First, I pretty much never catch anything off the dock and second, my host Gord, feels fishing is only slightly less boring than watching CPAC. In fact, it would be safe to say Gord thinks fishing is philosophically “stupid.”

After spending several hours vigorously hurling lures off the dock and managing to land several sunfish, one of which might have been larger than a good-sized oatmeal cookie, I really started to bug Gord to take us out in the boat.

After a half-hour of badgering, he relented, the gracious host that he is. He also just wanted me to shut up. I thought we would simply noodle gently around the nearby bays, but of course, Gord insisted on barrelling at high speed out into Georgian Bay, giving my spinal column the kind of workout you can only get by repeatedly jumping off a six-foot fence.

We eventually arrived at an amazing spot, an almost invisible underwater rock ledge where Gord’s grandfather used to take him fishing as a young lad. I realized I was now under a lot of pressure to deliver, so I reached into my tackle box and pulled out my brand new plastic bait, rather unfortunately named — Coffee Tubes. Feeling quite professional, I rigged up my line.

Eyeballing the jig, my neighbour Dave unhelpfully said, “Why don’t you just use a worm?”

I patiently explained that these new plastic baits are expertly engineered to mimic the colour and movement of various water creatures like crayfish, minnows and leeches.

“It looks like a dill pickle to me,” said Gord. “I’ve never heard of catching a fish with a dill pickle. Maybe you’ll land a nice corned beef sandwich.”

Actually, on observation, it did look like a pickle, but to prove him wrong, I proceeded to get snagged twice, lose my hook once and eventually catch a smallmouth bass that was easily as big as a canned sardine.

Gord was a good sport about it all and gave me every chance to land a lunker. I failed. Finally, we gave up and returned to the cottage. Slightly embittered, I remained on the dock and proceeded to repeatedly cast my dill pickle into the lake. Eventually, I hooked something large — Gord’s diving platform.

“That’s the biggest thing you caught all weekend,” said Gord, before he generously swam out to unhook me.

Next year — if I get invited — I think I’ll just stick to charades.