I love being out on the water and hate fishing. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

A colleague of mine invited me to go out on a lake and try our luck at catching fish. I categorically refused.

It’s not that I hate fish. I love fish, especially with a side of rice and a cool drink. I just hate sitting around for 12 hours to catch a fish the size of a thimble.

But my coworker begged and pleaded and mentioned the seven-foot-long salmon he was sure lurked somewhere beneath the surface, and at last I assented.

We sat in a little canoe that already had water in the bottom of it before we even got on the pond. Then my coworker jerked the oars and we were off on our fishing adventure.

I asked where he was rowing us. He mentioned he was rowing toward the middle of the lake, where the fishing was best.

“How do you know the fishing is best there?” I asked.

“A guy marked it,” he replied.

“On a map?” I questioned.

“No, he drew an X on the bottom of the boat,” said my coworker.

I looked at the puddle steadily growing beneath my feet and saw the X. “Why isn’t this the best fishing spot?” I asked. “Where we are, right now?”

My coworker stopped rowing. “I guess it could be,” he said. He handed me a fishing pole. “Only one way to find out.”

So we cast our lines and waited for 527 hours. Or maybe it was 528. All I knew was that the salmon, seven feet long or not, were not biting.

Maybe our lures weren’t tasty-looking. After watching mine bob on the surface for a while, I was ready to eat it.

At last something pulled at my rod. There was a definite yank on the end of my stick. “I got one!” I yelled, and spun the reel as fast as I could.

The fish was putting up a fight. Our canoe even wobbled. At last I gave a great heave and brought up… a stick.

“A stick?” I said, bewildered.

“A stick,” confirmed my coworker. “But it was a hard stick to catch, mind you.”

We spent another 82 hours just sitting there before my coworker finally rowed us back to shore.

So even though we went out to the middle of the lake, we didn’t catch a single fish. I recommended we mark the bottom of our boat to warn other fishermen of our fate.

So we drew another X on the bottom of our boat and gave it back to the rental. Then we walked along the lakeshore for a while.

I didn’t see any seven-foot-long salmon, but I’m sure they were there, whispering about how clever they were. You don’t see fish wasting 924 hours of their lives trying to fool humans.

But fishing was a meditative experience. At some points, I even enjoyed sitting there in the cool breeze, wondering about dinner.

Maybe I’ll come back one day and try my luck with the salmon. Until then, I’ll mount my stick on the wall as a trophy.

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Copyright 2026 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. For more information, check out her website at https://apaskhaver.github.io.