IT ADDS UP

Recently, we had a discussion at our house about keeping track of the catch and release bass for this 2009 fishing season. Last year, I kept a note book. When one top water fishes, one looses as many as one retrieves. We knew that but didn't have stats to show it. Nor did we have stats of time and place. It wasn't that hard to do, just took a pen that would write on the damp note book paper. Some one had to have a watch.

Tom waltzed into the jewelry store before Christmas last year and asked for a fishing watch for his wife. Imagine the clerk's surprise when he picked out one with diamonds that was solar driven. AHA! I thought, watch, pen, and notebook, ready for 2009.

But Tom was certain we could do better. I called around in Fargo looking for a counter. Something simple, tick, tick, tick; one, two, three. What I found was $20+ dollars each.

The beauty of catalogs and Internet buying is simple. You can search price. Most likely you can beat the price. And so to the menagerie of the basket for fishing came two counter, a yellow one for me and a chrome one for him, both purchases and postage/shipping & handling for less that the cost of one downtown.

It does not have numerous functions. It will only count fish. Tom stated he might bump his now and then driving up the numbers. He is teasing, of course.

My concern is that the data we need for comparison may be greater than numbers. After all if I am going to play queen of the data, I want more than a catch and release number. All of this is the gift of a multi-tasker.

I suppose like any hobby, there may be as much to it as you wish to add. If, for example, I was going to just start fishing, one would think a reel/pole and a few worms would be enough. And it is.

My friend, Soozi, in Arizona is a quilter. Do you think she has one needle?

Another does mosaics, how much glass do you think she has stored away?

Does a photographer have one camera?

Does a golfer have one club?

Here, you can use my counter for the next couple of weeks to count your hobby pieces.

e