Happy to not get skunked

It takes a lot less to make me happy than it used to.

I pulled my minnow trap last week and found three crawdads inside. I was tickled. Bait or a snack, my choice, and it wouldn’t cost me a dime.

Perhaps I should have been disappointed with my catch. There was a time, not so long ago, I certainly would have been.

Had that trap not held at least two dozen minnows, I would have considered my efforts a waste of time. Now I’m simply glad not to be skunked.

Same with fish. Anything less than a limit was a bust.

As I grow older, however, it takes much less to please me. I’m happy with just a bite.

Maybe it’s my appetite. I don’t eat nearly as much as I did when I was younger so it doesn’t take so much to feed me. One fish is usually enough to fill the bill.

I’m no longer so concerned about filling the freezer, either. Besides, there’s still half a deer in there from last fall.

I worry though, because I’m content with less. Isn’t that a bit un-American? Shouldn’t I want more of everything -- fish, game and minnows included?

Anglers in Third World countries may be content with their meager catches, but this is America, land of plenty. We’re not supposed to be happy unless we’ve got a stringer full.

Or at least we didn’t used to be.

Certainly not me.

Now a lot of us -- whether it’s because we’ve simply gotten older or because things just aren’t as good as they used to be -- have lowered expectations. We’re tickled to find three crawdads in the minnow trap.

To be sure, I could have invested more time in the minnow trap, maybe placed it a better location, and baited it with something other than old ears of corn.

As it was, I put little effort into the whole enterprise and still caught something. That’s the kind of lesson I won’t soon forget.

Had I invested more time and effort, I might have had more success, but there’s a good chance I still would have ended up with three crawdads.

And then I would have been disappointed instead of tickled.

Hopefully this is an age issue and there remains a generation of younger anglers not content with meager catches, who still seek to fill their limits and their bellies, who turn up their noses at crawdads.

Someone needs to make my minnow trap great again.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]