If you can’t stand the heat ...

THERE ARE BASICALLY THREE things that will stop me from going fishing with my buddies. They are: electrical storms, hunting season and blistering hot days. The first is because graphite rods and lightning are a bad combination, especially if you’d rather not have hair like a mad professor. The second is because you can only do one thing at a time and I’d rather be hunting. And the third is because excessive heat tends to cause people to strip down or wear skimpy clothing and it’s almost impossible to avert your eyes.

This can lead to major problems for the angler, especially if you are fishing around docks or cottages where people are sunbathing. And those cottage owners will let you know this in no uncertain terms too.

They’ll yell things like, “Can you please get your buddy to put his shirt back on?” Or “Kids, avert your eyes that man’s wearing a thong!”

Believe me, it’s not exactly fun for the guy in the back of the canoe either. But sometimes there’s just nothing you can do about

it – except wonder why your oldest friend has a bikini tan line.

Aesthetics aside, this can also be dangerous in a practical way.

Fishing clothing, after all, provides the first line of defense from hooks and the teeth of predatory fish like pike and muskie, both of which your shirtless fishing partner just might run into after you push him overboard.

It’s also a distraction and hard on the eyes to see that much white in front of you on a cloudless day. Worse still, this is the sort of thing that eventually ruins friendships.

Why you ask? Well, sooner or later, he’s going to ask you to slather sun tan lotion on his back and you are going to have to say no. Or alternately, you can tell him you’ll do it on an isolated island and as he steps off the boat, push off and pick him up at the end of the day.

Either way, feelings are going to be hurt.

This is why, if I fish at all, I tend to fish alone on the hot days.

I think this would happen less often if we as anglers just caused the shirtless one in the boat to see the errors of his ways. I often try to do this in a subtle manner like running a lure in the water below my friend and asking him to tell me if it is running right. This will cause him to comment on the lure and then get all excited about the huge hawg behind it. And that’s when I’ll point out he’s looking at his own reflection. Hey, it’s what friends do for each other.

The thing is you shouldn’t have to do this at all.

None of this would even be an issue if the people you fished with had a little more self-awareness. Instead, they tend to still believe they have the same body they had 30 years ago – which they do, albeit slightly rearranged.

It’s a huge issue that we in the angling community do not consider often enough. But sometimes, when you are stranded on an island for the day, you have time to think about things like this … ON A SERIOUS NOTE, hunters are being asked to participate in a study this fall to determine the extent of West Nile Virus (WNV) in wild turkeys and ruffed grouse. To find out more, email Dr. Amanda MacDonald at: Amacdo21@uoguelph.ca.