Cleveland Cavaliers 2023 Pre-Season: Salmon Fishing in Bethren

I fished for Salmon on the Manistee River last weekend, and to hear my friends tell it, I spent some time fishing neck deep in the Manistee River too. The Cavs are also in a fishing situation with a lot of their developmental players right now,. Given those contexts it’s time to hand out some pre-season player grades and tell some fishing stories.

Fishing public waterways is one of the last great equal opportunity enterprises in the U.S. Here, any Michigander (I know, I know) can fish for $24 a year or $10 a day. Whether you’re living in a rundown trailer on the outskirts of Brethren, MI or you’re renting a 2000 square foot AirBnB built by a recently deceased retiree who turned a semi truck garage into a palatial passion project to be scooped up on the cheap at the beginning of the pandemic, anyone can stake out a spot on the river and try to reel in one of God’s anadromous wonders. Similarly, almost any able bodied person can play basketball: shoes, a court, and a ball. Georges Niang, for one, embodies this ethos with his “everyman” frame.

Not gifted with great athleticism, chiseled physique, or windmill arms, Georges has focused on shooting as his calling card and turned that focus into a three-year $26 million contract this summer. Grade: the quintessential hefty elder fisherman: camping out a space on a nice rock and throwing in a beautifully parabolic cast every few minutes to the exact same spot. You can expect him to reel in a decent fish every now and again, but he’s not going to get you many trophies, cause he really doesn’t wanna wander too far from his “spot.” He will at least keep the competition honest. Through the preseason, Niang is 6-14 from deep and hasn’t hesitated to let it fly when open, averaging 6/2/1 in 18 minutes a night.

The socioeconomic spectrum of public fishing is a bizarre gradient. At the top of the spectrum sit the weekend warriors: guys and gals driving up in a brand new hybrid F150 or $60,000 Grand Cherokee. They made the trip from Farmington Hills or East Lansing to throw back some craft bourbon with their old college buddies and dip their brand new hip waders and 20 pound test into the surprisingly not-yet-frigid waters of climate change October. These suburbanites are paying someone $3 a head to clean their catch, and probably forgetting to take the filets out of the freezer before they throw em out in two years. Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland fall into this category in pre-season: they don’t need to be here. Grade: City Slickers.

Below that grade are the studious kids: the rare ones who’ll put down the phone long enough to learn the tricks of the trade: letting the line drift down through the run bouncing along the bottom, touching every foot or so, at approximately the same speed as the current, then reeling in the line to start the process over again. Maybe to impress Dad or an older brother, or maybe even more importantly to appease some taskmaster in his or her own head, the young fisher is determined to master the process, to learn the rhythm of the river (or perhaps the game). The fisher knows when to wait, when to lure his prey with an open lane, or a pink cork and yarn before the fish tries to strike and the fisher pauses to get the timing right: setting the hook with sinewy whip of the rod or sneaking in and grabbing an ill conceived floater out of thin air with elastic arms.

But sometimes, the fisher lets the rod go slack at the wrong time, and the euryhaline spits the hook to return to deeper waters or the fisher bites on a pump fake and is forced to clumsily foul a scrub to prevent an easy bucket, prompting a groan from an assistant coach or overserved uncle. Such is Evan Mobley: who mostly gets it right, but still makes the wrong play every time you think he’s really in a rhythm. Still, you’re wondering what he could become as he averages 10.5 points, 6.5 boards and a stock in just 19 minutes per pre-season game. He’s drawing more fouls and looking even quicker around the basket. Most importantly, he’s only averaging one turnover so far and he’s only shot one ill conceived three-ball. You know greatness is coming and that some day soon he’ll wade into the deep water where the trophies dwell. Until then you are content to watch him take in the world and plan how he’ll make it adjust to him. Grade: Almost a Fine Fisherman.

Standing on the shore is the older brother: a man who’s mastered the movements, the control, the currents of the fall, but no matter how hard he tries, he’ll never be the favorite son. He doesn’t have the reflexes, the grace, the raw precociousness of his younger sibling. His chances to display his prowess before some sorority wife takes him away for investment planning weekends and 2.5 kids are dwindling. Still, he enjoys the moment, laughing with his friends, netting the fish his brother hooks, and reeling in lesser competition. Isaiah Mobley should deserve a chance to be a rotation big for this Cavs team, but given his relegation to late third and fourth quarter runs against second tier Israeli teams, it seems like he may never get a chance to shine in Cleveland as anything other than “Evan Mobley’s older brother.”

Isaiah dropped 10/6/1 versus Maccabi Ra’Anana but was mostly an afterthought versus Atlanta and Orlando. Despite showing some very nice passing from the elbow in the last few games, it’s hard to figure where he fits in the Cavs’ plans. One thing I would do if I was Mobley the Elder is focus on what this team desperately needs: rebounding. Isaiah’s best way to make an impact is to become an elite rebounder and finder of loose-balls. It’s something this team sorely lacks, outside of the aged Tristan Thompson, likely only Isaiah Mobley can provide rebounding off the bench. Grade: forget the net, be the guy that grabs the fish with his bare hands, guts it, and packs it up the stairs.

Tristan Thompson, though a better athlete in bygone days, is the guy who Isaiah should emulate: the picture perfect floater perfectly timed to catch and deliver in one motion off the pick and roll; the relentless rebounding of the Finals’ years; and the fat-bottomed screens that the department of natural resources won’t ticket him for every time… Tristan’s Grade: Long Lost Fishing Buddy.

When he’s hanging with your crew, you still call him by his pickup nickname, “Canadian Dynamite.” You know that in the years between now and when you lost touch he drifted off somewhere out west: L.A. or Eastern Oregon. He’s had more than a couple kids with more than couple women, but he still texts you every Thanksgiving and, oddly, on Mother’s day to give his best to your wife and all the Moms in your life. You know that he’s been a disaster on previous trips: crying to your future sister-in-law’s aunts about his latest divorce in a Vegas cafe at three in the morning; missing the ferry on the Russian River; haplessly trying to tow some idiot out of a sandbar with his Cherokee and snapping the tow cable so that the hunk of iron lodged firmly between you two in the middle of the windshield.

You also know given the chaotic nature of his existence, you may never get to laugh with the likes of Tristan again after this trip, or that he may show up again next year with the product of his latest spawning: three boys that he drove two days with in a mini-van full of iPads to show up unexpectedly at your doorstep. Fuck it. Enjoy the moment because this guy’s so goddamned lovable: a gorgeous shipwreck of a man who can box out anyone, pull a Kardashian, and shove a coho into a too-small cooler before posing with it in a rigor mortus “C” a few hours later. You can’t wait till the beer starts flowing and you start trading stories, but you’re exhausted just thinking about it.

And hell, at least he is there, instead of some of your old compatriots who are no longer fishing: the Ricky Rubios of the world. You don’t know where some of them are at all. Some are mathematicians. Some are carpenter’s wives. Don’t know how it all got started. Don’t know what they’re doing with their lives.

Elsewhere, at opposite ends of your fishing hole are the two guys fighting to be in your “group.” One of ’em is some guy you’ve never seen on this river before, some specialist from Miami who is supposed to be very good, but you don’t see it. Yeah, his cast is real pretty, but it doesn’t stay out of the weeds when you need it too, and dear God, he just let that guy just drive right on by him. Also, he doesn’t rebound or whatever the fishing metaphor equivalent of rebounding is. Like why are we giving this guy more respect than ole Caris who’s been fishing with us the last two years, and bringing in way more fish?

Even in pre-season, Strus had one good game: 13/6/5 in 24 minutes while going -8, followed by 15 minutes and 3/1/1 against Atlanta while Caris has averaged 10/3/5 in 17.5 minutes in two contast. Most of that production came while what we’d called in salmon parlance as “slaying the pinks.” (“Pinks” or “humpback” salmon are third tier of Salmon – not kings, but the regional Euro-leagues also-rans of salmon). Ultimately, neither Max nor Caris fit what this team really needs, a 6-9 dude who can shoot, rebound, and defend. Max Strus grade: that guy next to you that has a decent leader of small to medium fish next to him, but keeps yelling “It’s a tuna!” or “It’s a hammerhead!” any time he or anyone gets a fish on. He might be a decent dude in the real world, but he just rubs you the wrong way and seems super annoying to fish or drink with.

Caris LeVert grade: an inconsistent fisherman who conjures many an eye roll by tangling his line with yours or fouling a three-point shooter three times in four minutes. Hell, some nights you forget he’s there, but man, you love it when the fire gets going and you can let him cook. Dude belongs in the starting lineup if past experience is any guide, right?

Speaking of that 6-9 guy who can shoot, Emoni Bates is looking like a steelhead right now. Yeah, a stiff breeze could blow him over, and he plays way too upright on D, but he’s cut from the same cloth as Jordan Clarkson and J.R. Smith. Emoni’s an unrepentant shooter of quick-release parabolas that find the net from deep 45% of the time. Yeah, he could probably use a haircut, but honestly he needs the five extra pounds his locks provide on the pregame report. Emoni’s also  got an absolute nose for the ball on defense and always seems to be around it, even if he is often chasing it.

Bates is averaging 12/3/0 in 15 minutes. The better part? He’s not a turnover machine. He’s moving the ball, and will occasionally execute a dribble drive, but will kick it out if nothing’s there or just move the ball on to the next link in the chain. Offensively, he’s embracing the role of off-ball scorer, and doing just enough finishing around the basket (especially on back door cuts) to keep defenses honest. Most importantly, he looked just as good against Orlando and Atlanta as he did against Ra’Anana.

As multiple bloggers will tell you, it would be a devil’s bargain to Emoni play with the varsity squad this year. While the Cavs could undoubtedly use Bates’ shooting, the risk is: if you play him varsity, does he rest on D and develop bad habits? It reminds one of the opposite problem of Isaac Okoro, who the Cavs stupidly gave the role “go guard the other team’s best player” in his rookie season, letting his offensive development languish (after a late draft, no summer league, and minimal training camp). Do the Cavs risk the same with Emoni’s defense?

You can Watch Emoni for five minutes and realize he’s going to have a hard time getting over a screen or stopping someone one-on-one at the point of attack, but I say let him play off the bench in a zone and see what happens. Will that actually occur? Given that the Cavs signed Emoni for only a two-way before a restricted free agency next summer, it might be to to the Cavs’ long term advantage to keep Bates under wraps and sign him to a more favorable long term deal in 2024. Given his pedigree and what he’s done so far, I doubt that would be enough to keep other teams at bay. I’d like to see him get his 50 games with the squad, and if towards the end of the season he’s a positive contributor, convert his two-way to an NBA contract and see if he can give you anything in the ‘offs. You can never have too much shooting. Grade: a brand new rod and reel. What’s the point if you’re just going use it in the kiddie pool at the sportsman’s show and then never take it out of the garage?

Next to all those guys: some newb you don’t recognize who’s not annoying you, not precocious, not a headache, and who just seems to do his shit and contribute to the group: whether it’s fishing, cooking, playing euchre, drinking, or cracking wise. Ty Jerome‘s notching up 10/3/5 in just under 14 minutes a game with just one turnover and all positives on the plus minus front. You didn’t think this dude who used to hang with your annoying cousins in Oakland was gonna be worth a shit, but you can’t argue with the numbers so far. Grade: you’d like to see him tie a blood knot or shoot better than 1-4 from deep before you waste the good bourbon on him, but at least he showed up ready to fish, unlike your tall buddy with the fro.

Jarrett Allen Grade: the Fro has a GMC Yukon that fits five of you perfectly when you go fishing up north, but he got Covid hanging out in a casino in Gary, Indiana last week and now Damian’s driving you all in his 2008 Ford Exploder that smells like cigarettes from 14 years ago and beef jerky. So yeah. Here’s Damian Jones. He’s fine. He’s a perfectly nice guy. He doesn’t do anything well, per se, but he’s passable if you squint. Jones is not that funny. He reverts to the microwave for bacon, and the coffee always tastes a little off when he makes it. But if you pull out of the garage with him, all you think about all weekend is fucking cigarettes and beef jerky. How does he get only one GD rebound against Orlando and how come it isn’t even good beef jerky? It’s some weird-ass hot honey teriyaki flavor.

Damian mostly struck out fishing, but somehow when you played poker against the teenagers at the cabin, he killed it. How are you supposed to trust his instincts if he called down against a pair of aces with two pair against Bruno freaking Caboclo? Damian Jones Grade: Bumslayer. He’ll reel ’em in versus the spawned out snaggle toothed dregs of the Association, but against any fish with a pulse, you might as well just cut bait and save yourself the time. Also, he’s like beef jerky. He’ll do for protein in a pinch, but mostly, he just stinks.

Meanwhile, the b-tier of Euroball is filled with ex-NBAers (maybe they all signed up before Ra’Anana’s NBA exhibition schedule). Maccabi was practically bursting with ex-association ballers the likes of Dwayne Bacon, Quandari Weatherspoon, and Bruno “two years away from being two years away” Caboclo. Meanwhile Mimadi Diakite was out there reeling in the chinooks with his new crew from across the river while the Cavs were sitting there cursing the smell of beef jerky time. Yeah Mimadi dropped 17/3/0 on eight shots, 2-3 from deep, 5-5 at the line, and +1 for Ra’Anana Monday. That’s some serendipitous freaking fishing. WTF did this guy do to not make the playoff roster last spring, and better yet not even get a sniff from Cleveland this last summer? Mimadi Diakite Grade: the one that got away and was then caught by some upriver schmuck with your freaking lure still in its mouth. Why didn’t you tie a better knot?

It makes you wonder who planned this freaking fishing trip. Yeah you only fish at night, but you’d think you’d have made better plans during the day than driving around looking for geo-caches. Why didn’t you make reservations at the axe throwing place? Why didn’t you bring your golf clubs up north? It was only a 48% chance of rain… Hell, Christian 16/7/2 Wood signed with the Lakers for $2.85 this season mil in the late summer. That’s only a half a mil per season less than trip planner Koby to hire Damian “beef jerky time” Jones.

How do you get woefully outrebounded by the moribund Knicks and then fail to sign any freaking person who can rebound at a decent clip? The tax on mismanaging Kevin Love’s hand injury is still being paid. Koby Altman Grade: geo-caching during the afternoon of a fishing trip. You know you’re killing time till night-fishing. It’s all kosher till you walk up to the house that the geocaching app says grants you permission to be on the property’s edge, but meanwhile weird-ass Russian opera music is blaring from an unseen loudspeaker as you approach. You just know some Buffalo Bill looking motherfucker is sharpening a knife against a human skin strop around the corner, and you swear you can smell the flesh of his last victim being boiled off a corpse. You and your crew “nope!” and high-tail it back to your cab and woefully acquiesce to the scent of beef jerky, cigarettes, and complacency as you bounce your Ford to the next stop along the forestry service access road.

Hours later, it’s getting weird and dark as you ruminate over the days events, a little drunk from too much bespoke bourbon and rural gas station ice cubes. And yeah, you dragged yourself to this fishing spot at 8 zero dark 30 just after sundown. You and your crew all have headlamps strapped over your hats as you drift-troll the dark, cold river thick with fish. These waters are transparent onyx but still pretty tame before your best friend’s brother hooks an old beast – the first fish of the night. He reels this one in like an expert: never giving the old warrior an inch of slack.

When salmon fishing the spawning grounds, each of the fish is in some state of degradation. Sometimes they’re all snaggle toothed and white-finned, having already sated their biological imperative, they slowly wait for death after which their carapace will fertilize the waters for their young

When you net it, you see that it’s white on the edges, not from age or being too far past the spawn, but from a dozen encounters that left him the worse for wear: white streaks across its back where other anglers snagged him but he got away, cuts on his tail, and missing one eye. Still he gave you all the best fight of the night, and you think of what could have been if its migration had only been a little different.

If this weathered bastard had a name, it would be Isaac Okoro. Grade: the old man and the C(avs). On any other squad he’d have probably developed into a rotation player, but on this squad, he’s aging like the milk that squirts out of a jack king about to not quite fertilize some eggs and die. You don’t know if the 19 points on eight shots he scored against Atlanta is indicative of untapped potential, or the euphoria before the sweet release of roster death. Still, the kid has gone 3-7 from deep so far this fall, but looks just as inconsistent as he did the rest of his poorly managed career. You have to hope that somehow he escapes the bonds of your net and breathes the sweet air of freedom that will come when he signs with some team that knows what to do with him. I have faith in Isaac, even if most others don’t, and I silently let him go, till he swims back into the cold waters of the Manistee, to fulfill his destiny.

There are those I don’t have faith in though. Sharife Cooper comes to mind: a player fast and wily, who can score on most, but who cannot guard his brood to produce more than is taken from him, and can’t assist his teammates much. Good God, these metaphors are getting freaky. Sharife has been entrusted with late games, but it’s completely obvious to anyone watching that he’ll never make this squad. He’s the Sir’Dom Pointer of point guards for Cleveland: the guy will spend years helming the ship of the Charge. Grade: rogue trout. Sharife will never compete with the kings: but he’s got game enough to come up the river and score some points against the reprobate anglers of the world, at least on the far side of the dam.

As bizarre as these fish metaphors are getting, I swear, none can be more bizarre than the yarns I’m gonna spin for Sam Merrill and Craig Porter Junior. For Merrill, this preseason has been an utter disaster. After a monster of a summer league, our man Sam has struggled mightily on the exhibition circuit. Friday night’s game against the Pacers is likely Sam’s last night to redeem himself. Merrill has shot 3-18 from the field in pre-season, with 15 of those 18 being from deep. After a monster summer league (which he should have had – the dude’s 27) Merrill is struggling mightily against fringe roster players in pre-season. Unless he shines against Indy, I am not sure he’s gonna stick in this league. At this point Sam’s best option might be to go make some freaking money in Europe in the 3-4 years he’s got left before he’s past his prime. Grade: a shiny lure you found in your Dad’s tackle box – one of the last ones he bought. It’s great if you can catch fish with it, but if you can’t it’s just a relic that might conjure some solid summer memories – nothing more.

Craig Porter Junior on the other hand, continues to exceed expectations. The undrafted rookie from WSU has done nothing but brim with potential from the moment the Cavs’ signed him from Wichita State. Most of you don’t know this, but my Dad is from Shocker country, and I’ve a whole extended family full of folks who’ve had season tickets for literally generations. Hell, my grandpa is soon-to-be 97 and had season tickets as recently as his 92nd year around the sun. So am I rooting for the kid who led his team in points, rebounds, steals, blocks, and assists last year? Hell yeah I am.

CPJ has done nothing but shine as an overlooked gem from the moment the Cavs signed him. Through the pre-season, Porter has gone 7-10 from the field, 7-8 from the line, to go along with nine assists and a block in three games. Craig’s athleticism, poise, and mature game have projected to be much more in keeping with the modern NBA than the likes of the tiny, score-first Sharife Cooper. Still, it remains to be seen what the Cavs will do with Porter Jr.. One has to think that he’ll command one of the Cavs’ two-way spots along with Bates and Mobley the Elder. Grade: fish backpack. You don’t think it’s useful until you have a mess of fish to haul up 250 stairs to the parking lot, but he’s a damn sight better than dragging those chinooks up the slough: the wooden fish drag on the left side of the endless stairway. Meanwhile, your Keens slip on salmon roe and semen as you climb the rotted wooden planks, your talons clinging warily onto the handrail. You are grateful that you have this backpack. You know if something were to happen to you – say losing a member of your party like Darius or Donovan for an extended stretch, this guy might be able to fill in with some upside.

Meanwhile, last fall, 2022, you didn’t fish at all. You went to Vegas to crash a dental convention with your best friend and his brother who removes teeth and injects silver and nitrous for a living. And oh yeah, your mate who you thought could hang? He did hang in his own way. Dude got his drink spiked at Tao and passed out in front of his hotel room. You came around the corner 12:30 at night and he was talking to a couple of portly security guards covered in his own effluence, collapsed against the wall in front of your hotel room.

Hell, you don’t even know how he got there. He didn’t have a room key and everyone needed one just to ride the freaking elevator. $250 in cleaning fees, 90 minutes of Lake Mead water, a whole new bathroom door, and a non-vomit covered dop kit later, you didn’t even know how this cat was gonna make it back to the 330. But here he is a year later, looking like an Amish pimp as he throws his line in the water. “This dude will always be a story” you tell yourself as he slinks his weighted lure into the same spot over and over again.

And suddenly you hook a fish. It’s a beast: silver, lean, and long it rolls 20 feet in front of you. This beauty just arrived at the Tippy Damn spawning area. No bedraggled post-spawn detritus here. Your buddy, Sugar Creek Dolemite, grabs the net to help you land this nubile beauty. You swear with trepidation. Swiss Valley Shaft is upriver, and this gorgeous fish is down river. Tall Pappa Yoder walks out onto a water covered peninsula between the two holes where you’ve been drifting for kings, and you worry. The batteries are going in his headlamp, and he can’t see how deep the drop-off is downriver, right where the king you’ve hooked is headed. And Superfly DNP’s right there, light dimming as he reaches his net towards the fish, and he has it, twisting it in his grasp to lock the beast between aluminum and vinyl mesh.

A second later, though, Holmes County Sweetness is gone: just a head bobbing in the water with a faint light on his brim. That magnificent fish dragged him out into the deep water. That chinook goddess somehow slid free from net and hook as this glorious Pennsylvania Dutch Dope remains, thrashing in the inky blackness. You’re swearing over the loss of fish, but you’ve never seen this before – in your two decades of fishing trips with your Dad and Uncles: Ezekiel Dipshit Jones thrashing about in hip waders. Somehow he’s still holding a net in his left hand – bereft of salmon and amazingly clutching his pole in his right mitt while he kicks his boots against the current. You can spot it: that moment when he starts thrashing against the cold and the Manistee waters slide under the bib of his waders and the cold currents slide all the way down down his boots, filling them with the fluid that you’re worried will carry him down river to other fishermen from which you’ll have to embarrassedly procure him, or worse, out to the “what the fuck am I gonna tell his wife?” depths of the middle.

But that hapless dipshit still kicks and somehow conjures enough force to fight the current, despite his rubber soles filling with agua. Miraculously, this glorious idiot thrashes against the tow: slowly, inch by inch fighting the stream, until he plunges the aluminum net like a bannered piton into the rocks of the isthmus on which he once stood. He uses that beam of aluminum, mesh, and glory to pull his pot-bellied weight onto the rocks, bruising his knees and shins as he climbs out of the current, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. This fool’s still here, among your tribe of fishers, still fighting for his spot on the river and a modicum of respect that was moments ago inconceivable.

James Dean Wade grade:  hapless drifter – almost lost to jetty. But here he is: three games, 46 minutes, 35 points and 16 rebounds of pre-season later. Oh yeah, and 9/15 from deep. This bearded yokel who was too dumb to realize he shouldn’t be here anymore crawled out of the river, pulled his hip waders off, wrung out both pairs of socks, shakingly put tried to put his wader boots on backwards twice, finally got his shit worked out, and rose again like Lazarus, to hook and bag a solid 20-pounder 15 minutes after he went in the drink. All your boys were thinking they were gonna have to run hi. back to the lodge home to ward off hypothermia, before he told your son to “fuck off” for giving him shit for the tenth straight minute as he reeled in a king.

In little spots of headlamps, flashlights, and lanterns along the banks are the lonely fishermen. Men on the fringe trying to get enough to feed their families: The veritable Zhaire Smith, Pete Nance, and Justin Powell of the fishing socioeconomic spectrum. They’re trudging back to their kin on their bikes, their rusted trucks, and their former trap cars. Grade: respect the grind, but you know that it’s just that, a grind: trying to stake a life that is harder than it should be. Metaphors aside, I’ve lived on subsistence salmon, and I’d much rather be a fringe basketball player. At least then, the odds are you have friends with money. I respect anyone who works for a living and tries to put food on the table, and I respect anyone with the work ethic to pursue a passion like professional sports. There’s no shame in just being good enough for the g-league. It’s a damn site better than I’ll ever be at basketball, or salmon fishing, for that matter.

Finally, the specter of the old man watches over the whole procession. He started these trips way too young, barely knowing what he was doing. He’s tried to mix it up, but he doesn’t know if it’s going to work. There may not enough size to fight the current. Two years ago, all the mainline guys were like 6’10”, and this year the crew mostly rode in a Ford Exploder that smelled like beef jerky for most of October. So far this fall, these dudes are barely tall enough to wade in three feet from the bank, let alone fill a freezer full of kings. Still, he’s gonna give it his best, despite the trip planner getting drunk and busted the week before this whole fiasco was supposed to start.

J.B. Bickerstaff grade: his dad used to do this shit, trying to succeed with defense and positioning instead of putting fish in the basket. Now the younger coach is trying change up the game: bagging more fish than the competition instead of conjuring yet another tired ass metaphor about preventing those other schlubs from bagging fish. Still, at the end of the night, this crew is taking home more than a few pounds of flesh, and that means something, even if we’re still not quite sure what, or how the catch will weigh versus the rest of the rivermen. All we can hope is that it’s better than the year before, that we change the batteries in our headlamps, and that we don’t lose our footing in the same old fishing holes. The worst day of fishing or basketball beats working for a faceless corporation. Anything beyond that is a bonus.