This is a story of a couple of old guys who wanted a day of fishing at Irvine Lake. Mike was my neighbor across the street. He was a tall heavy man who served his country in the armed forces now retired and was getting on in years. He liked to come over to my house and chew the fat about his Vietnam fighting days in the U.S. Air force. He had a warrior mentality and the other neighbors avoided him whenever they saw him out on the street. It took a while for me to get to know the man but under his gruff exterior was a very gentle nice guy.
He was at a loss trying to find hobbies to keep himself busy in his retirement. Mike wasn’t very talented at most things he tried, but never gave up pushing his limits to do better. One day he called me over to his home and presented me with a bag of North American Fisherman magazines and a few bags of plastic lures which as a subscriber, they had sent him for free. “I sure wish I could go out and use these lures if it were possible” he said to me. I was sure he wanted me to take him out locally to fish. My response was “Sure Mike, we’ll go to Irvine Lake sometime soon”. He smiled back. I knew it made his day knowing there was a glimmer of hope that we might be going fishing together.
Another fishing buddy of mine named John, was also getting on in years and suffered from many physical ailments. He too, was overweight like Mike. I would say they were both in their mid-seventies and shared many of the same ailments. Both were prostate cancer survivors and previously had heart attacks and bad knees to name a couple of their ailments. John was always calling me up to take him fishing since his eyesight was so bad that he couldn’t drive anymore. The problem was he lived in Montebello up in LA county and I had to pick him up or his daughter would have to drop him off at my house in Santa Ana so we could go fishing. It never seemed to work out for either of us.
Then one day I had figured out that I could kill two birds with one stone and take both of these two old guys fishing at Irvine Lake. I had the logistics worked out for getting John down to my house by his daughter dropping him off at my house and his son driving him back to LA the next day. I asked Mike if he wasn’t too busy if he wanted to join John and myself fishing at Irvine Lake? “Well heck yeah” was his response. I figured both of them would be talking to each other about all their ailments and find out they had a lot in common and bond really well.
Our fishing day finally came. John arrived at my house early in the morning courtesy of his daughter Cathy. Mike crossed the street with his small tackle box of goodies supplied by North American Fisherman and a trip to the local Walmart. He also purchased a cheap fishing rod and reel for our trip to the lake. We loaded everything into my Honda Accord and off we went.
When we got to the lake it was decided that we were to rent an aluminum boat. Our quarry that day was trout and I had come prepared to catch fish but more importantly to make sure both of my buddies on board caught fish so they had something to brag about to their friends and family. After all, this was a communal effort just to get them together to go fishing.
I had the duty of steering the outboard motor while both of my passengers settled into their seats organizing their tackle. John was a seasoned fisherman and was eager to assist Mike on tackle choices and rigging up for trolling to which we did.
“Fish on” shouted John, who was the first to hook up. I slowed the motor to an idle and let him reel in the small stocker rainbow trout. We continued on trolling but it seemed to be a slow morning on the bite. Then I decided to try another method of fishing.
Pulling the boat up near the west shoreline I decided to try drift fishing as long as a light breeze continued, we had a shot of catching some trout and it worked. Mike soon hooked up to his first trout ever caught. John netted the smallish stocker rainbow for Mike. Seemed that the day was starting to look pretty good for these two old-timers. Both had grins on their faces and were getting along very well together.
After a while Mike asked if it were possible to use the bathroom? John joined in and stated he too needed to use the facilities. Both had prostate problems so I wasn’t too surprised by their request to go to the courtesy dock a short distance from where we were. I too, needed some relief so off we went and in a very short time we arrived at the dock. As we pulled up along to the dock John grabbed the railing. I got out first and started walking towards the porta-potty at the top of the hill at the launch ramp. After doing my business I exited the porta-potty and walking up the launch ramp towards me was Mike. He was dripping wet from head to toe!
I looked towards the dock and two large guys were pulling John out of water onto the dock. All of our belongings were floating everywhere in sight on the water. “What happened!” I asked. “I went to get out of the boat and it tipped over”. “I don’t know, it happened so fast”. He replied back, then he continued to walk past me to the bathroom. I walked down to the dock where John was sitting just dripping wet, then he looked up at me and said, "If you ever invite that As#@le out fishing with us again I’ll kill you. He tipped the boat over trying to get out onto the dock. All our gear is on the bottom of the lake.” Then he pulled out his cellphone from his pocket. Water poured out as he turned it on its side to inspect. “I just bought this phone two weeks ago” John sighed.
I could tell this event was something they both weren’t going to be too forgiving over. Me on the other hand, wanted to burst out laughing but I had to restrain myself. Believe me, it was really hard not to laugh. One of the guys on the dock asked if they could assist us retrieve the fishing rods by using a couple of big hooked lures and drag the bottom. This was very beneficial.
They managed to retrieve all the rods except one cheap rod/reel combo of mine. It was not a big loss to me. They even managed to pull up John’s double-sided tackle box minus most of the lures that fell out. I got in our boat still filled halfway with water, and motored over to the rental dock. The guy at the rental dock said he saw the whole thing and said it was funny as all hell. I told him that I thought it was funny too and just wish I could have seen it happen. Then I asked him for another boat to go out and gather all the stuff floating out on the lake to which he did. After gathering all our floating equipment, I headed back to the courtesy dock. Mike and John were there gathering gear as I pulled up. “I don’t suppose you two still want to continue fishing today?” I inquired to both. They both shook their heads in a "no" fashion. Not wanting to throw any salt on their wounds, I said that I would bring the boat back to the rental dock and get the car. Then I would meet them at the bottom of the launch ramp a short distance from where they were.
After we loaded the vehicle up with our remaining gear retrieved from the lake both John and Mike got into the car. There wasn’t a word spoken between them so I decided to break the ice. “At least you lucky bastards caught a fish today I didn’t”, then I waited for one of them to speak. I was trying to hold back my laughter but just couldn’t hold it in anymore and let out a huge belly laugh while looking at Mike’s reaction to my laughter in the rear-view mirror and then at John sitting in the front passenger seat. “ You, You, You, stop laughing” John bellowed out. “It’s not funny” he said. “Really, I think it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. I only wish I could have seen it happen” I giggled. Then Mike told John that he was sorry for giving him no warning that he was going to get out of the boat and it was his fault for the incident. John replied back, “You should have told me so I could grab onto the dock to hold the boat steady for you to get out. Yeah, you bet it was your fault”. And with Mike’s apology the ice between them was broken to more conversation on the drive home. John went to pull out his wallet to give me some money for his share of the rental boat and noticed the paper contents didn’t fair too well after being submerged. He found that his Medicare and insurance card were rendered unusable. “Oh no, my Medicare card is ruined! Now I have to get a new one.” John groaned. Then as if on que, Mike replied “Damn it, mine too”. They both found some common ground. When we got home, I insisted that they shook hands before parting to which they did. A couple of days later I phoned John to let him know that Mike offered to pay him $100.00 towards his cell phone replacement. That was the last fishing trip that either of them had.
