Fish Stories
Last year, while I was fishing, I fell in the water, but it really wasn’t my fault. A small
sunfish hit my chartreuse wooly-bugger fly and I was fighting it. Then, a largemouth
bass swallowed the sunfish. Then, a northern pike swallowed the bass. Then an 8-foot
long musky exploded out of the water, swallowing the pike in one gulp. The tidal wave it
made capsized my boat, and I fell in … so you can see that it wasn’t my fault.
Everybody likes to hear a whopper of a fish story. You know they aren’t true because
they are such exaggerations. Some folks tell fish stories about stuff other than fishing –
and they aren’t such exaggerations – they are more like “minnow stories.”
For example, let’s say I was shooting baskets and I made a shot from just above the
freethrow line after missing 14 times in a row. But when I tell people, I just say I made a
shot from around the 3-point line. That’s a minnow … stretching the truth a little.
Realistically, it’s still a lie.
The problem is that once the truth starts stretching, it just keeps stretching. My eyes
were squinted while I was concentrating on the shot so they were almost closed … no,
they were closed … and I was turned sideways to throw the ball … no, I was all the way
backwards … and I’m pretty sure I was closer to mid-court than the 3-point line.
So, now I made my first shot from mid-court behind my back with my eyes closed.
Now that’s a whopper!
Once you stretch the truth a little, it is stretched out of shape and is no good, and your
word is no longer good. It’s better to stick to the truth – minnows have a way of growing
into whoppers.