It has been entirely too hot to fish.
Actually, it’s been entirely too hot to do much of anything outside in Arkansas unless your hobbies include spontaneous combustion.
We’ve reached the portion of summer I like to call cremation weather.
But if the weather people have their crystal balls properly calibrated, we’re supposed to get a break next week. And I already know where I want to be.
Feet up.
Sitting on the dock beside my pond.
Fishing pole in my hand.
Accomplishing absolutely nothing.
Which, now that I think about it, is a little strange for me. I don’t particularly enjoy wasting time. I can waste it. Let’s be clear. I am perfectly capable of losing 45 minutes looking at something on my phone that I didn’t care about when I started and somehow care even less about when I’m finished.
But intentionally doing nothing? That’s harder. My calendar will prove that every event is written in, every meeting scheduled, every pickup and drop-off meticulously planned months in advance…unless you give me a fishing pole.
Then apparently I can stare at water for four hours and call it a very productive afternoon. Even if I spent the entire day and never got so much as a bite. Totally outside my standard MO.
Fishing is one of the few things I can think of where absolutely nothing can happen and you still consider the day a success.
Think about it.
You can pack up your gear, get your bait, find your spot, cast a line and sit there for hours. Nothing. Not a nibble. Not a bite. Not even one overly ambitious bluegill willing to boost your self-esteem.
Then somebody asks how fishing was.
“AMAZING!”
Was it?
Because by almost every metric we use to measure the rest of our adult lives, that fishing trip was an abject failure. Nothing was produced. Nothing was accomplished. Nothing got crossed off a list.
You don’t even have a fish to show for it.
And yet…It was great.
I spend a lot of my life measuring things.
How much did we accomplish?
How many people did we help?
How much money did we raise?
How many things can I cross off today’s list before I add six more?
Did the event work?
Did I get enough done today?
Somewhere along the way, adulthood convinces us that time needs to produce something before we can justify spending it. Then fishing comes along and says, “Nah. Sit down.” I like that about fishing.
Now, occasionally fishing DOES produce something. And every once in a while, it produces something completely ridiculous.
Last year, Speedy and I traveled to San Diego for one of my work conferences. We had an extra day and decided to book an ocean fishing excursion. Because, little known fact, I generally look for fishing adventures everywhere we go.
The plan was to catch rock bass. Perfectly respectable fish. And we caught a passel of them!
Apparently nobody explained the itinerary to the Mako shark. Because Momma bagged a Mako.
If you’ve never deep-sea fished before, it’s an entirely different beast. Giant pole. Multiple hooks. Enough line to reach somewhere near the earth’s crust. And we were fishing with tiny octopuses…octopi…you get what I’m saying.
Anyway…we had a boat full of fishermen that day, and the winds were high, so people kept getting their lines tangled underneath the boat and basically catching each other. I hadn’t had that problem, but when my arm started feeling like it was going to fall off from reeling, I assumed that’s what had happened.
Then I got a really big tug.
So, naturally, I gave a really big tug back.
A flash of fish hit the surface and all hell broke loose.
I barely got, “What in the world is on my line?” out of my mouth before almost the entire boat crew sprang into action. Between yelling at me to keep reeling and brandishing what looked like a mercenary’s cache of machetes, the shark was on the deck and being processed before I fully understood what was happening.
At some point, one of the deck guys noticed me staring, mouth wide open, somewhere between awe, “Do we really need to kill it?” and “But can I get a picture first?” He explained that the mako had to be processed immediately or the meat could quickly become inedible. He was already dead, and we certainly weren’t going to waste him.
So I stood back and took it all in.
What an amazing experience.
I will never forget that day.
We went out expecting one thing and came home with a story I’ll probably still be telling when I’m eighty.
Side note: we also learned how to fly home with a backpack cooler full of mako shark steaks and rockfish fillets. TSA couldn’t have cared less about the fish…but the bottle of sand Oliver asked me to bring home almost made us miss our flight. But that’s a story for another day! LOL
That’s one of the wonderful things about fishing. You never really know what’s on the other end of the line.
But here’s the thing. I don’t need to catch a Mako shark every time I pick up a fishing pole to make fishing worthwhile. Thank goodness, actually. That sounds exhausting.
Most fishing days aren’t San Diego. Most are considerably less dramatic.
Sometimes it’s just me sitting beside my pond. Feet up. Watching the water. Listening to whatever is happening around me. Casting every now and then. Maybe catching something, or maybe not.
And I’ve been thinking about how much of life works that way too.
We spend an awful lot of time chasing Mako moments.
The big win.
The promotion.
The championship.
The successful event.
The record-breaking fundraiser.
The vacation everybody talks about for years.
The giant thing on the other end of the line that makes us think, THIS is a story.
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And those moments are wonderful. We should celebrate them. We should take the picture. Tell the story. Mount the shark. Okay, maybe don’t mount the shark. That’s between you and the shark.
But life can’t be all Mako sharks. In fact, I don’t think they’re supposed to be. Because most of life happens in the space between the big catches.
It’s Tuesday afternoons and regular dinners.
It’s conversations that don’t solve anything.
It’s sitting with somebody you love without needing to be anywhere.
It’s hobbies you’re never going to monetize.
It’s doing something simply because you enjoy doing it.
It’s time that doesn’t make you more successful, more efficient, more impressive or more productive. And maybe we’ve gotten a little too good at believing those things don’t count.
We’ve turned hobbies into side hustles. Rest into “recharging” so we can accomplish more later. Vacations into itineraries. Walks into step counts.
And somehow even doing nothing needs a reason. Maybe it doesn’t.
Maybe enjoyment is enough of a return on the investment. That’s one of the things I think I’m finally learning. Not everything worthwhile has to have something to show for it.
A conversation doesn’t have to solve a problem to matter.
An afternoon doesn’t need an itinerary to be memorable.
A hobby doesn’t need to make money.
Rest doesn’t have to earn its keep.
And you don’t need a fish on the stringer to prove the fishing was good.
Sometimes you catch dinner. Sometimes you catch a story. Sometimes you catch absolutely nothing. And sometimes the best thing you catch is a few hours when nobody needs anything from you and the only thing you’re responsible for is watching the end of a fishing pole.
That’s not wasted time. Maybe that’s the point.
Speedy and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary this week. And by “celebrated,” I mean I had an event, he had to referee, and somewhere in the hallway as we ran in opposite directions we basically managed, “Happy anniversary. I love you.”
Very romantic. We’ll celebrate properly this weekend. But maybe even that fits here.
Fourteen years of marriage has given us plenty of Mako moments. Big adventures. Big memories. Days we’ll talk about forever.
But that’s not what most of marriage looks like.
Most of it is the dock. It’s sitting beside the same person with your feet up, watching the bobber of everyday life.
Sometimes something big grabs the line. Most of the time, you’re just glad they’re sitting beside you.
And maybe that’s true of a lot more than marriage.
So if the weather people really do have their crystal balls properly calibrated, sometime next week you’ll probably find me sitting beside my pond. Feet up. Pole in my hand.
Maybe I’ll catch something. Maybe I won’t. I’ve already caught the Mako. I think I’m finally old enough to understand I don’t need one every time.
Sometimes an empty stringer and an afternoon on the dock are plenty.
And that’s how the ball really bounces.
Read more from How the Ball Bounces with Bekka in the archives at www.mysaline.com/bounces.
About the author: Bekka Wilkerson is a lifelong lover of all things sports. Raised in a super athletic household it was no surprise when she too began to love sports at a young age. It seems like from the time she could walk she had a softball bat in her hands, but her true athletic passion came from all things Basketball. That love served her well as a Bryant High School Lady Hornet and ultimately earned her a full scholarship to play at the University of Central Arkansas – among many other adventures.
These days Bekka can be found running around Saline County with her husband, Speedy, or chasing one of her grandsons. She is also the Executive Director of The EMpact One Foundation, a Saline County Nonprofit Organization that helps young people stay connected to extracurricular activities through tuition assistance and equipment provisions.
Reach out to Bekka with questions and/or ideas about things you want to see in this column at [email protected] and learn more about The EMpact One Foundation at www.empactone.org.
