In a teaser sound bite for Kevin Costner’s latest movie, SWING VOTE, he is shown casting for fish as he and his daughter sit on the bank. When the daughter asks to leave for school, Costner says, "Just one more cast".I immediately remembered, and related to his wish to continue casting because I experienced the same years ago when I had an opportunity to fish the private lake at my sister and her husband’s property in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
One morning during my visit with them, Esther’s children, Marion, Cindy and ‘Mo’ (Vern, Jr.) took my daughter, Kim and me fishing. They furnished the fishing gear and tackle and while they collected rods and bait, Kim and I fixed a picnic lunch which included enough munchies to last the afternoon. Making sure that we had the mosquito repellant, the children, whose ages ranged from 10 to 14, piled into my Corvair van and off we went. Mo gave directions on how best to drive the pastures to avoid muddy or rocky spots until we reached a grove of trees along the waters edge.Kim and I were novices at fishing but the girls and Mo gave us tips and made suggestions. As the morning passed, we had nothing to show for our efforts. We ate our picnic lunch and went back to fishing. We had lots of nibbles but no fish so we ate munchies and fished some more. The afternoon wore on without a single fish having been caught. One by one, the children started hiking back to the house leaving me to fish by myself. I told them I’d stay a while longer but I’d be along soon.
The sun went down, dusk settled in, and I was busy with, "one more cast". Dusk got duskier and when it was really on the verge of being dark, the headlights of my brother-in-law’s truck came shining thru the trees. He had come to drag me back to the house for supper.
While I put all the fishing paraphernalia into the Corvair, Vern took my fishing rod and cast ‘once’ just to see if the fish were biting. Suddenly, on the first strike, he had a big one on the line. While I stood with my mouth wide open, I watched him bring in a beautiful big mouth bass.
