A “relatively” True Story

My cousin, Wayne, is an avid fisherman. He had fished all the rivers and lakes around his home in East Tennessee by the time he was fifteen. But real life sometimes distracts us from what we love to do most, and life after graduation from college is no exception. He got a job, and it took him away from the land of rivers and lakes. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts, but his desire to be out on the lake with a rod and a tackle box never subsided.

That’s a Keeper… not

After relentless bragging of his great fishing exploits to his Bostonian workmates through the years, he finally had the chance to show them exactly what he was talking about. He and two co-workers were scheduled for a conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, and he made sure to build some “leisure time” into their itinerary.

  His excitement grew as he took his co-workers to the home of his childhood, where trophy-sized mounted fish still hung in his bedroom, and a well-used bass boat sat waiting in the garage.

  So Wayne got the boat, his two friends, and all the bait they could muster, and headed out to the lake. They had been out in the boat about fifteen minutes when Wayne’s rod bowed over to the point it looked like it would break. “That’s how you do it boys!” Wayne hollered. He pulled, and rested as the fish would come in toward the boat, then turn and make a run, spinning the line back off the reel.

  After fighting for two or three minutes solid, Wayne finally pulled in the biggest, heaviest, monster bass he had ever caught in his life. He was already thinking about how grand it would look mounted next to the others at his parent’s house. “What do you think of that boys?” Wayne asked his two guests with obvious pride.

“We thought you said you caught big fish here in Tennessee. Back home, we just throw those small ones back.”

Disheartened, Wayne said, “We do too.” and tossed the behemoth back into the water – to which his two guests immediately confessed, “Are you kidding us? You threw it back? That was the biggest fish we ever saw caught in our lives!”

photo: http://photo.accuweather.com/photogallery/details/photo/22703/His+big+catch+for+the+day

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