So I ran into Kazu in the halls of AP House Thursday night around 11pm or so… and to make a long story short he breathlessly invited me to go fishing the following morning at an absurd 4am.

What sort of advantages Kazu seeks to earn by departing at such unearthly hours are unbeknownst to me. Perhaps he thinks, in that twisted mind of his, that if we arrive early enough we’d actually be able to simply pick the bass up out of the water, such would be the depth of their slumber.

Who knows… In any case, never one to pass up an opportunity to abandon work and embrace the nirvana of watery pursuits, I accepted.

On this particular trip, the first of 2006, our twosome was augmented by an additional two Japanese students by the names of Daisuke and Shigeru. Despite the ungodly hour the neophytes were light on their feet and eager to face the scaly adversaries that awaited us.

We returned to the impoundment, Kazu’s home turf, only to find the water level had been raised nearly 4m since the previous fall’s trip. As a result, any and fleeting bit of insight I had gained into this particularly stingy lake’s secrets was now null and void.

The four of us fanned out along the first bank we came too, with the 3 locals eventually wandering off widdershins and myself ambling to the left. As per the usual weather on this impoundment, it was unseasonably cold, but the serenity was a tonic unto my soul.

The peaceful conditions were soon counterbalanced however by my realization that I had made a grave tactical error. Without evidence to support it, I had conjectured that the lake temperature would have by now reached the point at which the bass move into the shallows and… enjoy the company of others. In such a situation one is best served by an assortment of plastic worms, lizards, and other things the sights of which evoke eeks from young ladies. So I had packed well for this scenario, but instead found myself in a sticky wicket when I realized the water temperature was still quite cold and those… amorous bass were nowhere to be found.

Nevertheless, I am a Heath, and we tend to catch fish. So it was after flailing away at the water for nearly two hours that I finally avoided the skunk with a respectable catch.

Kazu, on the other hand, had armed himself with an assortment of hardbaits – just the thing to catch sleepy, lethargic bass that are still waking up after a long winter in a cold, cold impoundment. The crafty fellow landed 5 to my 1 and won the day hands down, but I did not lose ungracefully.

Not long after my first and only fish had been gently released a downcast Shigeru came trudging back in my direction. We fished together for perhaps an hour more and then decided that we’d leave the foolishness to the fools and packed it in. For the next 3 hours while Kazu and Daisuke casted and casted until their arms fell off, Shigeru and I made coffee, stretched out in the late morning sun for a pleasant lake-side nap, and hand-fed some cows that came wandering by.

In the end Shigeru and Daisuke, rookies both, went home empty-handed — although Daisuke had the poor fortune of choosing to partner with Kazu and thus fished himself stupid all for naught while Shigeru and I relaxed in style…