There are lots of reasons to fish, but they all involve some sort of relief or enjoyment. At least they should.

I mean, if fishing isn’t fun, why fish at all?

Of course I’ve had my share of frustrating times on the water, at least by someone else’s standards, but not mine. Time on the water is always time well spent and never, ever worth wasting by getting angry or upset over losing a fish, a lure, malfunctioning equipment, or any other of a hundred things that can go wrong on any fishing trip.

Don’t fret about mistakes and mishaps on the water. Just learn from them, maybe have a laugh, and quickly move on. Cripes, if I spent too much time having tantrums over my fishing blunders I’d have very little time for fishing! Which brings me to the gist of this column. Goofy lures.

Yes. I can’t get enough of them. They’re infinitely fun, especially when they produce fish. Another thing that’s fun about goofy lures, other people either think you are completely nuts as a fishermen or, better yet, they think you know something they don’t know. Either way works for me!

You see, I like fishing with lures that look like children’s bathtub toys – turtles, ducks, mice, rats and, yes, bats. Not the baseball kind but the spooky, flappy wing kind. (Notice the clever tie in with the adjacent bat story?)

Whatever works. Right?

Anyway, I’ve caught fish, good fish, on lures that seem just to weird to really work. Love it! Crazy lures make fishing fun. I’m certainly not recommending using them all the time in every situation but rather give them a try from time to time. Of course, you’ll have to ignore the disgusting looks and comments from your fishing partners who will no longer want to associate with you. What could be more fun than that?

The best part is when you hook a big fish, or any fish, on a goofy lure and your fishing partners see you do it. Then come the questions like, where did you get that? How much was it? How were you retrieving that thing? Interesting, huh?

Oh, they’ll be much too proud to pull such a lure out of their tackle box the next time they go fishing with you, but they’ll have spent the money to get one. That’s what fishermen do. Told you fishing was fun!