LOST AND FOUND

   Years ago a friend of mine showed up to fish wearing a pair of Oakley Sunglasses. He was proud of them and with a price on the far side of $100, he should have been.

Sunglasses are vital fishing tools, but they
don't have to be overly expensive.

   Now, don’t get me wrong! A good pair of sunglasses are important when fishing. They cut the glare, protect your eyes from UV radiation and function as safety glasses. But they don’t have to cost on the far side of a hundred bucks.
    The boat I owned at the time had fairly wide, carpeted gunwales. For some reason Larry took off his glasses, laid them on the gunwale close by his elbow and a fish bit.  It’s not a long story, but sad. “Fish on,” was called. Elbows flew. Oakley’s went into the lake and we could see the faint sparkle of the O even as the black frames faded away as the pricey spectacles sunk below the waves. .
    Larry was naturally upset and the loss sent him into an amazing display of stringing multiple curse words together into a sentence that made supercalifragilistic... seem as short as a personal pronoun. It was a truly awesome performance.
    Twenty minutes later I decided to change the lure on the back downrigger. When the downrigger weight came up out of the water, there were the Oakleys, the earpiece folded securely around the downrigger wire. Since I was between Larry and the prize he didn’t see them so I quickly grabbed them, folded them up, slid them into my breast pocket and closed the flap.
    Another 20 minutes went by and I mentioned the lost sunglasses once again and goaded Larry into another, almost as good as the first time, string of cursing as he bemoaned the lost glasses and lost money. So I told him that since he felt so bad, I’d let him have them back and pulled the lost and found pair of sunglasses from my pocket.
    It was grand. Had I pulled a rabbit from my pocket he couldn’t have been more incredulous!