Stubb's Rules of Absolute Certainty

There are rules we all learned very young such as: "If you chew with your mouth open, it will be slapped shut for you." Or, "if fifteen buddies and I skip school, it's me that'll get caught." And, the hardest rule to learn: "A gallon of gas will not get my V8 Mustang thirty five miles to the girlfriend's house and back home."

Well, I was fairly slow but I did manage to retain these items and by the time some years passed I'd gotten smug. I knew the rules; moved around the world with them ingrained in memory and it helped some. Once in a while I'd encounter a strange, slightly bent rule that was vaguely familiar like: "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine also and my attorney will prove it." The lady who taught me that one has gone on to greater things and I recovered, eventually.

Then one day I bought a kayak and fishing tackle and within minutes was confronted by a whole new world of rules. However, these "facts" or "certainties" of fishing were not in reference books that I could find. The learning process was and is painfully slow. I continually forget them even though time and experience, blood, blisters and sweat helps drill them into my leaky brain.

Therefore, I've listed a few of these rules for the fisherfolk among us. I'm thinking of having them tattooed on my forearms for instant reminders and reference.

1. When using a paddle craft for fishing:

a) The wind will always be in your face; and,
b) The wind will strengthen in direct relation to the distance from your launch site.

2. All wind predictions are low. Add 25%, minimum, to the forecast.

3. By definition, all casts to tailing fish are upwind.

4. Wind and tide will combine to make your favorite fishing site inaccessible.

5. Violent weather fronts arrive at predictable intervals: every Saturday morning.

6. Divorce attorneys subsidize the commissions of boat salesmen and tackle company representatives.

7. Treble hooks are attracted magically to clothing, fabric straps, wood, fiberglass, vegetation and human skin. Trebles are a fish repellent.

8. After driving 200 miles and launching at dawn, you will hear from fellow fisherfolk: "You should have been here (a) yesterday (b) last week (c) twenty years ago (d) before the area became a missile testing range."

9. If you carry a friend to a secret hole and advise him to use a particular lure in the "right" way, before you can make your first cast, he will catch eight redfish.

10. When discussing fish caught, the length of a fish increases 3.5" for every day since the catching event. (Note: this rule has limitations governed by the length of the fisherperson's arms.)

11. If the bait and tackle shop is out of the hot new lure, you will buy something else since it makes you look good .. er, knowledgeable.

12. The depth and clarity of the water is directly related to the expense of the item dropped overboard: e.g., a plastic jig will be instantly retrievable in eighteen inches of gin-clear water while your IGFA calibrated Boga Grip will drop into a black hole three hundred feet deep.

13. If the fish are where you never seen'm before, then they ain't where they've always been.

There are others but I've forgotten what they were. (NEXT: "Theory of Flats Fishing") or "Home"