Another snowy week has again kept me from getting any fishing time in. But, I thought I would share a chuckle we had this summer along with accompanying pictures. If you read my story from a couple weeks ago, I shared a message from my best friend, Chris. As many of my fish stories do, this one includes him. While in the thick of the salmon season, Chris invited his boss out for a day on the water. Out of respect for his annonymity, I will refer to him by only his first name. That way those of you who know a Monty can ask him. So Chris' boss Monty is out for his first time on Lake Michigan and in his excitement, he realizes he forgot something in the car as we are about to push off from the Port Washington launch ramp. Those of you who have been to any Lake Michigan port at daybreak know you need to be efficient at launching and getting out of the way. Monty, being a considerate man, ran to his car and back with much more effort than a man his age should. We appreciated his effort and the the laugh we got from watching him run. When he returned, his capacity to be coordinated expired just before he made that last step onto the deck of the boat. He was able to, (as gracefully as possible) avoid a fall to the deck, and more importantly, into the water. However, a sacrafice had to be made, and the casualty.....his cell phone. There is a reasoning process that the mind goes through when they lose a cell phone. First, the denial stage. "No, my cell phone did not just drop into the lake!" On to reasoning, "Maybe it didn't sink. Could I go in after it? We could fish it out. Can I see it if I really squint?" Monty is now looking at each of us to give him some hope that we can fix this problem. We cannot offer any false hope and he reads that from our faces immediately. As we pull away from the dock, acceptance sinks in. "All the phone numbers and email addresses lost. How much is it going to cost to replace the phone." Inevitably, the jokes start flying around. Being good friends, we could not see letting Monty forget about it as time passed. The next time Chris and I were out fishing, we created some posed pictures and sent them to Monty. I hope you enjoy them.