I have a favorite candle that I only light on extremely rare and very special occasions. Television is not for me, I'm not a watcher, I'm a do'er. I know when I'm looking at water in many rivers that holds trout, certain of it, positive in my mind, based on experience. My friends are not followers, they are leaders. Most trees don't break, because they bend. That's probably a good stand for trees to take, but not if your gonna hang around with me or my friends. Yes we are very inflexible, we take a stand, and we stand by it, regardless of what others think. We are this way because no one else pays our bills, feeds us, or helps decide our fate. We consider us, responsible for us, which keeps us, from being beholding, to any other mortal. The lake has three foot waves that swell occasionally to five feet. We've pulled herring nets in worse weather so not only are we not afraid, we respectfully know our limits , were sure of the equipment's capabilities and more importantly, what this water can afford only on days like this. A duck hunter understands what rough weather like this means, which, since were all duck hunters, we don't mind being cold or wet either. Seven trucks with boats pull up, were the only ones to launch. They think we have lost our minds. They think that, but we don't care. The first fish is only three pounds, the next seven weigh five or better, up to and one that goes nine pounds, and one weigh's 23 and half pounds. That fish alone would not only make the day, but that fish became the biggest of the summer and it took all three of us to get it in the boat with waves coming over the transom, one guy fighting the fish and between the other two of us trying to net it and hold course on the tiller. Every fish was the same with respect to trying keep from being thrown out of the boat. Rod rigging and net minding, kneeling your way, bow to stern and back again when a rod set at a hundred and fifty feet deep, tripped. The down riggers whined, the lines as fish hit, sprang like plucked guitar strings. We had practiced most of the summer as a team and nobody got hurt, nobody screwed up and we hauled some lunker's from the bottom. Back on shore, many asked us who caught it, the 23 and half'r, a local newspaper reporter even filmed the trout for us. He asked the three of us who caught it for his story, we said, "we" caught them all. The trout whisperer.