Football and Fishing

My husband, Seth and I have a few running jokes when it comes to football. He actually likes to watch the games... I just like to listen to all the cliches the players, coaches and sports announcers say in their interviews. It's always "we gotta take it one day at a time" and "you gotta give em a lot of credit," etc. It makes me laugh every time.

Seth and I just finished taking a fly fishing class that centered on nymphing. My limited experience in fly fishing up to that point involved only dry flies and I'd found it to be very enjoyable. I was sure after taking the class that I would be the most amazing fly fisher in the world. Or, at least the best woman fly fisher and thus end up getting my own television show, fancy equipment, and a lifetime of all-expense paid fishing trips around the world. Then I'd design my own line of high-end fly fishing gear for women and watch the profits and acclamations roll in. Unrealistic? Nah.

The last part of the class was a field trip up on the Weber River in Utah to practice everything that Navi, our instructor had taught us. The actual field trip wasn't until Saturday, so Seth and I decided to go practice at the designated fishing spot before we went with the class. On Wednesday evening when I got home from work, we drove up Weber Canyon to the Devil's Slide area to fish. Seth had actually driven up to Devil's Slide on Monday to check out the spot and was raving all week about the hoards of Whitefish and Browns he'd seen. When I first got out of the car and looked over the railing down at the deep green holes of clear swirling water, I knew we were going to catch a million fish.

Now as a background, I rarely ever get skunked, especially on rivers. However, I had fished the Weber River several times before and had always been skunked. Not even so much as a nibble. The Weber had become my nemesis, and tonight I was going to conquer it. I was going to make it beg for mercy. The main difference with dry fly fishing and nymphing is a couple split shot weights on the line. You've got to get that bug to the bottom of the river so the lazy fish sitting down there will eat it. I had never tried casting with weights on my line, so needless to say my first few casts were pretty ugly. Instead of the usual smooth, tight loops and straight graceful layout onto the water, the end of my line flew into the river with a haphazard spinning dive. Seth was nice enough to give me some tips though, so after his instruction my cast improved significantly.

Navi had instilled the belief in us that we'd be getting bites on every cast. Every twitch or movement of the strike indicator was a fish, not a snag. I had never used a strike indicator so was not quite sure what a real bite would look like. So, following directions from Navi, I set the hook every time I saw the strike indicator move. I don't know how many times I 'set the hook', but I can tell you that it was never a fish. Seth and I became more and more discouraged as the evening wore on. We kept our distance from each other and silently fumed with agitation. We could see several fish swimming around that would periodically jump, just to taunt us.

Towards the end of the night I set the hook once again and felt resistance. I was sure I had yet another snag. To my surprise my line began moving around and I realized it was a fish! I yelled to Seth that I'd caught one just as the fish jumped off my hook. I never got a good look at it and I didn't get it close enough to even see which one of my flies it'd taken. We ended the trip with my one bite and Seth getting skunked. Before this trip we had done pretty well on all of our fishing excursions. Now, we couldn't catch a fish to save our lives.

On the way home that night we reflected on our experience. Because we had gotten all riled up thinking we'd be catching fish on every cast, we hadn't enjoyed fishing like we normally did. Instead of screening the river for bugs first and catering to the fish like usual, we had fixated ourselves on the idea that nymphing was the way to go and nothing would work better. We realized how inflexible we'd been... thinking that we were already all-knowing professional fly fishers.

Just like anything you practice doing, you're going to have your good days and your bad days. Greatness doesn't come easy; it takes a lot of hard work, patience and perseverance. You gotta take it one day at a time and always remember... to give 'em a lot of credit.

Football Season

Seth mentioned to me the other day that football season is going to be starting again soon. My immediate response was, "Oh great. My life was going so well and now it's going to be ruined." Seth looked at me with a hurt look on his face. I truthfully am not a big football fan... I've tried to like it, but just can't seem to get into it unless there's money riding on the game.

Although my comment was made as an exaggerated half-joking statement, I think Seth was kind of freaked out. Had I not spent hours with him watching the games last year during football season? Was it all a ploy to trick him into marrying me? I'm sure these were thoughts that were running through his panicked mind.

Truth be told, Seth is really very reasonable when it comes to the amount of football he watches. He typically only watches one or two games a week during the season and the games always involve teams he actually cares about. He doesn't watch football just to watch football. Although I normally sit with him the entire game, I typically don't get too excited about what's going on. I usually put a dollar or two into the completely luck-based work pool for the Superbowl however, so during that game I just get excited about the score. I find that it helps my attention level immensely.

Sometimes I'll pick a team that I want to win just to make the game more interesting to watch. I usually pick my team according to who is wearing the "prettiest outfits." I do this as a conscious girly thing because I know that's how men think women usually choose their teams. I just like to add to the stereotype. I did this during the last Superbowl and my team actually won, even though they were "not supposed to." Seth had been rooting for the other team and though I would have liked to rub it in more that I won, he just looked so dejected I didn't have the heart. I don't understand how men get so emotionally involved in a game. If I'm watching a game and my team loses, I'm over it in a minute flat. Guys can carry around the disappointment for a week. I just don't understand it.

Now to be fair, I'm sure there are things that I am involved in that Seth thinks are completely weird. I take pictures of the food I make so I can post pictures online. I send him picture messages on his phone of different haircuts so he can help me choose. I organize the closet by color. I insist on watching all episodes of Grey's Anatomy and can't understand why he doesn't want to watch it with me.

I think there are things that men and women are never going to understand about each other. We're just wired differently. But I figure if spending an afternoon snuggling with my husband on the couch and him getting a good meal is the worst we have to endure because of these differences, so be it. I'm willing to suffer the consequences.