Have you ever made a friendly wager on who will catch the first fish, biggest fish or most fish?
If not, you should. It is the perfect way to ruin a relaxing day.
I know because last year my buddies and I finally put to paper the rules of our annual walleye opener fishing contest. To us, this document would rival the importance of the Magna Carta or a Super Bowl party pizza delivery list, so we penned it with exacting care.
We did so because the team that caught the most inches of fish would win yearlong rights to a new 3-foot Rapala lure replica. This treble-hooked traveling trophy would be presented, signed and dated as part of a post-fish fry ceremony on the shore of Leech Lake. Just imagining such an honor inspired all of us to further hone such important angling skills as fibbing, feigning ignorance and solemnly pointing to a distant-yet-never-fished shore and saying, "Yup, that's where we caught 'em."
Sadly, however, our first crack at a well-run contest was fouled by rules as muddy as the Minnesota River after a rainstorm. This turbidity was discovered on tournament day, and it created the kind of chaos that makes a Florida election appear the pinnacle of democratic integrity.
Specifically, the definition of "camp" became a real chad-hanger. The precise meaning was critical because the official weigh-in — or more accurately measure-in — was scheduled at 5 p.m. at "camp." Boat partners Greg Kvale, Pete Kvale and I argued eloquently that "camp" was written in the rules to mean the Stony Point campground rather than the campsite where our travel trailers were settled. We made this appeal for two good reasons. One, you can't get a 115-horsepower outboard motor to push a boat 400 miles an hour. And, two, we landed at the campground at 5 p.m. but did not amble into the campsite until 5:05 p.m.
Regrettably, our plea for a more liberal interpretation was lost in a din of knee-slapping, belly-laughing and guffawing from the two other fishing teams that labeled us "the late, the losers and the disqualified."
The second contentious rule interpretation involved measuring boards. This unexpected snag surfaced because the team comprised of Gary Drotts, Dick Stoltman and Mike Marlatt brought to the measure-in a walleye that was clearly legal when placed on one board yet questionable when plopped on a second, held in a certain way, flattened with hydraulic force and measured to the micron with an electron microscope. The discovery of a dubious fish resulted in quite the kerfuffle.