The day I've been waiting for

We were sitting at the kitchen table shelling peanuts and enjoying the salty taste, sipping on a “London Porter,” and reviewing the day’s successes after a pleasant afternoon of ice fishing when he said, “the next time we go ice fishing I think we should go for trout.”

My heart leapt. I tried to contain my inner childlike glee because I’d been hoping he’d say that for weeks now.

I smiled big, my head bobbed back and forth in agreement as I chomped on a mouthful of peanuts and swallowed hard so I could bounce back with, “That would be great. I’m game,” while trying not to give away my absolute enthusiasm at the prospect of landing a fighting machine, cousin to a salmon.

I would take ten-fold passage over to the adventure.

Immediately I pictured myself landing a record weight prize that would take me an hour to reel in. I would use every muscle I had to pull it through the ice hole. Maybe I’d have to cut a bigger hole just to get it out. The trout would be so big I wouldn’t be able to pick it up. Photographs of my catch would appear in newspapers across Northwestern Ontario and Minnesota. My name would become a link in “Wikipedia” references to lake trout.

“But there’s only one catch,” added the smooth talking outdoorsman. I brushed off the cautionary tale I heard in his voice as he stroked his beard in contemplation.

I was too busy thinking about what kind of jig I was going to use to land that rod-snatching bulldog cheetah of freshwater that www.in-fisherman.com had convinced me was the ultimate challenge for this new-born ice fisherwoman.

“The one catch is that we have to snowshoe two miles in to get to the lake I want to take you to,” he said, giving me that anticipatory raise of eyebrow and a smile I knew all too well.

I coughed up the peanut I inhaled in the realization of the price I was going to have to pay to get my trout. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t written that column about the Snowshoe Olympics and my big, fat ego. I had to fight back my “Yosemite Sam” impersonation that was surfacing as fast as that hooked fish I’d been dreaming about.

“Sure,” I replied. “I can do that,” I sputtered, switching gears in my head to rent workout videos so I could get in shape for the day when I would strap on beavertails and channel Dora Keen, Marion Randall Parsons, and Mary Jobe, my three pioneering outdoorswomen heroines, so that I could walk the walk.

A new website I’ve been put on to is www.thelostartofmanliness. I’m at the other end of the spectrum from manly and yet it’s a really great read. I, too, can relate to the story within the story that speaks to memories of youth and gym class.

I dreaded gym class all the time. I loved exercise but I didn’t like gym suits and I didn’t like fitness tests because I could never run as fast as Janelle or jump as high as Janelle. She was the bomb. She got the gold. I got the “below bronze, participatory badge” for effort.  Always.

But I will snowshoe the two miles. I will do whatever it takes to get to that lean, mean fighting machine that is swimming in those deep waters out there in a northern lake and has no idea who’s coming for him.

I win.