The Jester’s Fish Story

subtitle: (especially archived for this April Fool’s Day blog)

date:

The Jester just told me about this fishy encounter, a tale from some time ago, on another, earlier, April Fool’s Day, also occurring a few years back.

The Jester always takes-off every April-Fool’s Day, because it is his favorite day of the year.  He decided to have some fun, take a vacation day, and do some early-morning fishing at the same time.  The Jester noticed that he could not find his fish hooks, so he decided he would just be lazy, and tie the worm to the fishing line.

Being lazier still, the Jester also decided, rather than to have to awake even earlier on his day off, just to dig-up some worms, he would simply break-off a few worm-sized tree-branch twigs, now, then spray paint them in a worm-like color.  After the paint dried, the Jester then figured he could just coat the fake “worm” with some wet glue on that morning, so that the fish would just stick-fast to the fake worm, when they came-by to check it out, and save the Jester from needing to go buy new fish hooks.

Now the smarter home-reader out there would think, but hey, when the glue on the fake worm gets wet, the glue will dissolve or get waterlogged.  Well, in working for the C-R theory like he does, the Jester is a pretty smart fellow.  He also figured this out, too, so he also packed a can of waterproofing spray.  He thought, after he applied the wet glue, just coat the fake worm with waterproofing spray, so that the glue would not get too waterlogged.

When the morning to fish arose, the Jester was prepared, and he had his fake worms ready, painted, dried, coated with fresh, wet glue, and properly waterproofed.  He quickly tied the fake worms to the fishing line, threw them in, and started waiting for the fish to notice them.  He hoped the fish would come-in close enough, and then get stuck to the glue on the fake worms as they swam by.

Now I am no good judge of the Jester’s plan, since I am not a fisherman, and I cannot say that his plan could have ever worked properly, but here is the report I got, straight from the Jester, just as he told me.

The smaller fish were not that interested, so they swam by without giving the fake worm much notice.  After ten minutes or so, the slightly larger fish, those who had been around the river for at least a year or two, swam by and came in for a closer look, but they were not that much interested, either.

Within a half hour or so, the larger fish, those that had been survivors for many years, finally got curious, and started coming-by.  I believe they were far too wise and experienced to fall for the Jester’s simple tricks, but that’s when a funny thing happened.

The older and larger fish just started to find this situation extremely funny.  They just could not believe that this inept human, (dressed-up in his full-color Jester’s regalia, too), had been foolish enough to think they would fall for his plan.

The older fish had been around long enough, that they knew how the fishing “game” was supposed to be played.  Some of them had probably been caught and released several times, before.  I suspect that the older, wiser fish could even read a little-bit of some of our human minds, just enough to know what was expected of them, and that is how they had lived so long, without getting eaten, and got to grow as large as they were.

Anyway, these older fish just found this fake worm, tied on to the line, coated with worm-colored paint and wet glue, then waterproofed, just so darned funny that they could not contain themselves without giggling a bit.  After the bigger fish all started laughing, the smaller ones finally caught-on to the joke, too, and they joined-in.

From the beginning of time, there probably have not been more than a dozen cases of fish ever laughing so hard, before (or since).  None of these encounters have ever been officially recorded for history, so this blog is the very first written account I can find.

Even though they did not lunge at the fake worm, and they were never in any danger of getting caught, as the Jester had planned, the larger fish just lingered-around and they all started laughing so hard that this created a noticeable disturbance on the surface of the water.  All-of the swirls and the turbulence from the laughing fish stirred-up the water above, almost like a bubble bath.

Well, the Jester noticed the gathering of these huge fish down there, underneath the bubbles, and he thrust-in his fishing net right behind them.  Normally, these fish would dart away as soon as they heard the net splash, but they were all just rolling around in a giggle-fit, and half-paralyzed with unstoppable, contagious laughter.  [And this danger from the net was briefly unrecognized by these fish, who had never been so thoroughly entertained before.]

When he lifted the net, the Jester found at least 3 huge fish gasping for their gill-fulls of water, but in our air, all they emitted was a very distinctive “fish belly-laugh” sound.

Now, being the consummate, professional entertainer that he was, the Jester noticed that those fish were actually laughing “convulsively-hard”, and not just gasping for oxygen, as the normally caught fish would do.

Needless to say, even though they were laughing mostly at his set-up, and not at the joke’s true punch-line, [which is a comedian’s “adrenaline rush”], the Jester did not have the heart to eat them.  Even though they would have been a prized dinner-catch, and they were some pretty-tasty types of fish, according to the Jester, they were also one of the better audiences of hearty-laughers he had ever entertained.

Now, a professional Jester recognizes, and respects, any responsive crowd, and takes a liking to them, right away, {even though they could also have been his dinner, in this case}.  He simply could not treat that appreciative crowd so badly, by eating them.

So the Jester went hungry that particular April Fool’s Day morning, and let those fish go back into their river-homes; but sternly warned them that he would not be quite so sentimental on another day, if he ever caught them again.  Ultimately, the Jester considered releasing them a small price to pay for the unique experience so few human fishermen have ever had, of witnessing the oldest and largest fish responding in a hysterical laughter-fit.

Anyone who has ever seen fish swimming in an aquarium knows they are a very tough crowd to amuse.  Even to make them just crack a slight smile, much less to get a good guffah out of them, is quite unlikely.  To have seen 3 of the biggest fish in such a high state of merriment is still one of the Jester’s most prized memories of all time.

When I mentioned to the Jester that I was looking for some new funny stuff for my special April Fool’s day blog, he said that my request just reminded him of that situation, from an earlier April-Fool’s Day, some years ago, and he volunteered to provide this account for your home-amusement.

Now I know that some fishermen are prone to exaggerating their stories a bit, and as a professional comedian, too, the Jester might have been tempted to go beyond all reasonable expectations to stick with the pure, unadulterated truth.  He swears that this account is all true, (but he did have both fingers crossed, and winked one-eye selectively, a couple times), so I will let the home reader decide on his veracity.

New for 2015,

SPECIAL NOTE: I cannot get the Jester to reveal where this event happened, since he is reluctant to share his secret fishing spot with the rest of the world.  He refused all attempts and requests, by me, to document this behavior.  However, keep your eyes open for someone dressed as a colorful Jester, fishing, but not using fish hooks, and maybe one of our observant home readers can discover this mystery location.

It is also possible that the new generation of fishes may not find the second encounter quite as hilarious, as it would have to surpass the original story’s embellishments, over time, with the re-telling from the original participants.