gone [maine]ing

i've fished more this year than i did the last decade living in wichita.

this year i've fished twice

just in case you were curious.

there must just be something about maine.  i'm not sure if it's the whole state, or just the people i've become friends with, but nearly all of them enjoy fishing.  this summer, one of my friends offered to take me and another guy out on his boat.  as i can totally enjoy the summer weather, while drinking a beer and holding a stick, it didn't take long to convince me to go.

we left early in the morning and headed out into casco bay.  we threw our rods in and starting catching tons of fish.  i was reeling them up three at a time!  i had never fished like this back home! i was having a blast!  come to find out, we were merely catching the bait....that's right, we were catching fish to catch other fish! a first for me.

having a full bucket of bait we went in for the larger fish, some stripped bass.  this ended up being a slower process than the bait fishing was, but once i hooked one it was a thousand times more exciting.  i was able to reel in two different stripped bass that day, both about 30 inches long.  we held on to them long enough to get pictures but then set them free to live another day.  the bait fish, that had thrilled me earlier in the day, unfortunately did not receive that same fate.

as we motored back to the shore that day i was curious about one thing. am i becoming a mainer because i fish, or am i becoming a fisherman because i'm in maine?