An El Salto Birthday Celebration With My Sister
[Editor’s Note: Today we have a guest blogger, but she’s no stranger to Half Past First Cast. She’s a longtime friend, serious angler, and has now joined us on three trips to Anglers Inn’s Lake El Salto. She’s also the wife of the angler many of us consider the best tournament bass fisherman in Texas. We’ve profiled Jennifer Combs here before, and she’s also been kind enough to offer up advice on how to find and choose housing when traveling the country towing a boat. Now, for the first time, she’s given us a column of her own.]
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I grew up in Central Texas in a fishing family. My mother and father fished team tournaments together for years until I took over her spot. My older brother loved to fish, too. Only my sister Janet was lukewarm about the sport. When the entire family would head to the lake we always had to take her waterskiing or swimming first before the rest of us could fish.
Janet is 10 years older than me, so even if we’d liked the same things it’s not entirely clear that we would have been close when I was a kid. She left home before I was 8 years old to go to Texas A&M, and then she got married straight out of college, so there really wasn’t an opportunity for us to have a tight sisterly bond. Even if that opportunity had been there, I’m not sure if it would have developed. We certainly liked each other, but I could also be a brat and probably annoyed her at times. Additionally, we were very different. I was a tomboy, into sports, and she was a cheerleader at the top of her class.
That’s changed a bit in recent years, partially because the 10 year age difference means less than it used to, and partially because Janet has two sons. The younger one, Tyler, joined his high school fishing team and that led Janet to rediscover the sport and develop her own appreciation for it. That helped us get closer.
This year was a big one for both of us—I was turning 40 and she was turning 50. I’d been to Anglers Inn at Lake El Salto twice, so I know how good they are at taking care of their clients, so I asked Janet if she’d like to celebrate South of the Border. To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect her to say “Yes,” but when she did I was pleasantly surprised. This was going to be a great way to share our milestones and to spend some time together.
Of course, then I started overthinking things and I began to get nervous. I knew she’d have a good time and the service would be excellent, but she doesn’t fish all that much. When she goes out on the water in Texas, it’s usually for a few hours or at most a half day. This trip was going to entail three and a half long days on the water. Could she handle it? Also, while she’s a competent once-in-a-while angler, I knew she would get the occasional backlash or put a few lures in the trees. Would our guide get impatient with her? Would I get impatient with her?
It turned out that I had nothing to worry about. Not only did she catch the first fish during our first evening session, but she caught the first big fish, a 7 pounder right off the bat. She continued to catch tons of fish. Yes, she backlashed and got hung up, but so did I. Our guide Victor was super-patient with both of us. It was obvious that he knew how to relate to anglers of all skill levels and pretty soon we forgot about being nervous and just had a good time in the boat.
It was my best trip to El Salto so far from a fishing perspective and I was thrilled to share it with Janet. She teaches special education, and these last few years have been especially stressful for her. Once we got to the lodge we were able to get away from those worries, unwind, and enjoy the moment. In fact, what surprised me the most was how nonchalant Janet was about everything. It was hilarious. She acted the same and sounded the same whether she had a 7-pounder on her line or a 1-pounder. I’d be super-excited, yelling at her to keep her rod tip down, and she just went about her business. Victor generally just laughed at us both.
The staff at Anglers Inn makes every trip special but this time they went over the top for us. They had a cake to celebrate our birthdays and we smashed our face into it at the same time and then laughed hysterically. It was the beginning of a week of celebrations, because when we got back to Texas we had a party at my parents’ house, and then when I returned home I was shocked that Keith had planned and executed a big surprise for me, too. I’m not ashamed to say that I got some very nice presents, but the greatest present of all was getting to spend all of this time with my sister, a gift 40 years in the making. I know that our parents worry about their little girls, and they were glad that we had such an awesome time together. I call them every day, and even a week after we returned my dad was still reporting that Janet hadn’t stopped talking about our time together. I’m sure we’ll be back. I just hope we don’t have to wait until I turn 50 and she turns 60.
