Hey Baby Won't You Take A chance

 

Spent Sunday with a neighborhood friend of over 70 years. His passion is horse racing and we spent a  long but very enjoyable day together driving to Saratoga, scratching the muzzles of two of his horses, (one the NYS bred two year old filly of the year), having breakfast at a back of the track diner where a young lady close to my age took our order, cooked the food, and half an hour later told me what I owed at the cash register, all without writing anything down, (I can't remember where I put my list, let alone what's on it). Bet on nine races, my horse lost his jockey in one race, jockey had to almost stop his horse in another to avoid a horse that cut in front of him, made some bad picks and lost seven straight races, when I won the next two, Tom said it was time to go. Lost $5.00 dollars betting and called the day a big win.  

This morning I had weekend stuff to do and was in no hurry to get on the road. Left about 11:00am  and had a late lunch upon arrival at 1:00pm. Spent the afternoon reading about Syracuse's loss to Tennessee, (some people's comments would make our EJ look like a saint). At 5:00pm I decided to try my luck at fishing. Drove up the PA side, saw a drift boat and a pontoon boat before I got to Buckingham. There were only two trailers parked at Buckingham, drove down to the ramp and a guide was taking out. Said they had been walleye fishing and got two, saw no striped bass, the water was covered with bugs, (ants when I looked), and that there were rising fish all afternoon.

The fishing - With the water covered with ants what was I to do? Waded in and fished with an ant. Saw very few risers, the water had so many ants on it every fish in the river had to have been been stuffed. Caught a couple of eleven inchers, ripped the fly out of the mouth of two fish, lost a nice rainbow, took a deep breath, calmed down and resumed fishing. The fish were full before I got in the water, caught half a dozen good sized fall fish every one of which puked up a wad of ants. With the carpet of ants on the water I just waded along slowly looking for risers. Had remarkably good luck with the few rises I saw, not counting the fall fish I hooked four more trout, all of whose bellies were bulging from the feeding orgy I had missed.

 Walking back up stream on my way to the car, an angler in a pontoon boat came down river, rowed out of my way and when I asked, he said he had rising fish until about 5:00, (which was when I started), and never saw so many ants on the water, he had set out hoping for white flies.

Only a fool thinks he knows what's going to happen on the race track or the trout stream. 

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