Mar 22, 2020 4 min read

Quarantine!

Now I know how criminals feel when they get handed a sentence and have to be confined. The difference is, I didn’t do anything wrong.

There are crappie that need to be caught, and very soon the trout in local streams will be calling my name. If things get worse, or even stay the same, then those fish calling for me will have to attend opening day without me. As I write this, the sun is shining and the temperature is decent and I should be on the shores of the lake washing the dust from my favorite lures. But no, Mother Nature has to get contrary and spread coronavirus across the globe killing thousands and sickening others.

In my mother’s childhood, there was the Spanish Flu that killed her mother in 1918. She was seven years old and had to help raise her brothers. Way back when, we lived through the Great Depression and had to really struggle to find food. All of those raised during this time told our children about the crazy things we did to survive and I think it has caused some of this panic at the stores. Do you remember using the Sears catalog in a way unintended by Sears? Well I do, and apparently so do many Americans. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.

It actually isn’t all Mother Nature’s fault. It is my daughter Kathy who has implemented the George Doesn’t Leave the House rule, or what I call solitary confinement. While I agree with her, I don’t like it.

We are discussing a plan to sneak out on a planned fishing event and I will report on this to you at a later date. I don’t want to run into any of you as I won’t be able to say hello from across that six-foot space. Also, I don’t want to run the risk of worrying my daughter or her catching her husband and I as she takes this job of chief of quarantine quite seriously. As I write this, I am thinking up a plan to go to a secure location to fish that might work.

To be truthful, there are other things to do while being required to stay home and avoid visitors. The truck always needs cleaned. Winter salt washed from not only the visible parts but also up under where it is eating the frame right now. It also would be a good chance for me to straighten up the gun/trophy room but again that is work. Since I don’t know how long this travelling virus will be around we had better find something to do. Remember, whatever one does it must be done alone for one cough or sneeze can lead to the last great adventure. That is one adventure we don’t want to take part in.

The firearms owner can take the extra time for cleaning all the guns. There also was a little incident that occurred some time ago where I dropped a tin of 177 pellets and one still rolls out from somewhere at least once a week. Maybe I could grab a flashlight and hunt each one of them down for fun.

Cleaning brass, watching a hop-a-long cassidy and looking out for spring turkeys all could be on my list of things to do. Which also means I need to find my turkey calls. I have also been casting off the back deck working kinks out of my lines and tying on hooks readying poles for the season.

No matter how you look at it, life is full of highs and lows. The fish are biting or they have lockjaw. Ups and downs are inevitable for us all. I feel like I have a better understanding of what England went through during the Bubonic Plague that ravaged that country. Though I admit, I don’t think in this day it will get that bad, I still feel for all those who are sick. I must remind myself that every person suffers adversity, the test of a person is how they handle it.