For the most part, fishing is exactly what it's cracked up to be. The majority of the time, it is a fun, relaxing, and rewarding pastime. Often, we go fishing feeling harried and overly stressed and return feeling rejuvenated and refreshed.

And so it should be. Else, why do it at all?

Sometimes, though, angling becomes harrying and stressful in its own right. It turns into something of a war between fish and fisherman. At such times, we, the anglers, become troops on a mission, motivated soldiers determined to best our "enemy" at all costs.

Looking back, this occasional military approach to fishing began for me around age ten. That was about the time my mother decided (after much wearing down) I was old enough to venture up and down the creek alone. Now that I was on my own, I had two things to prove: 1. I could go fishing alone and return relatively sound and unscathed (Translation: coming back alive under my own power). 2. I could catch a stringer full of fish without well-meant (but decidedly aggravating) adult assistance.

Filling a stringer in those early days was sometimes like those brief military conflicts such as Desert Storm or the 6-day Arab Israeli war of 1967. I simply dropped a cricket or worm into the fishing hole of my choice and the bream or catfish surrendered without much of a struggle. More often, though, my fishing sorties were World War Two, bitter all-out struggles won only through sheer determination and the refusal to give in to adversity and psychological warfare.

Bent on angling success at any price, I youthfully attacked and pursued my finned quarry much as Ulysses S. Grant chased Robert E. Lee through Virginia. I wasted crickets like old Ulysses used up Union soldiers. If it took 25 to catch one 3-finger stumpknocker, I sacrificed the insects without remorse. If a fish stole my bait once, he made it personal. I was Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar. I was a warrior.

Thankfully, I'm rather more laid back today. I find, however, there has been some carry-over from those days of yore. There are still times when I just cannot gracefully admit defeat. I simply must catch a particular fish from a particular spot or lose all my sanity trying. I’ll stand there and cast until my beard is long enough to tangle in my reel gears.

Take that big bass a few weeks ago, for instance. Ten pounds if she was an ounce. She was there by that stump, just lying there in shallow water. I could see her. I lusted after her. I had to have her. Spinnerbaits wouldn't do it. She refused to succumb to my topwater offerings. She snubbed plastic worms in every color of the rainbow and then some. For an hour, I cast every lure in my tackle box. I didn’t use dynamite only because my psychiatrist has said I should never play with matches. The only reason I didn't throw the kitchen sink is because I didn't have it with me.

Long story short, I never caught her. She never even flashed or swam away. She simply paid none of my bait offerings the slightest attention, the unkindest cut of all, particularly to a master angler of my caliber. Ruined my whole dadgum day is what she did.

Looking back now, I ask myself why I allowed myself to get so worked up over just one fish. I mean, there were scads more bass in that pond, a few of which would certainly have been stupid enough to take a bait. Maybe it all goes back to that little blond-haired girl in the sixth grade. The one who flipped over my best friend in spite of the never-ending supply of chewing gum and Hershey bars I dangled in front of her nose.

Or maybe I haven't quite outgrown those little creek bream who gobbled up nearly all of my crickets before I could string them up and claim a hard-won victory.

The sad truth is, when it's all said and done, some of us just can't stand being whupped. Especially when we're supposed to be smarter than the one doing the whuppin'.

War’s like that sometime, I reckon.