I run into this a lot as an outdoor writer. A guy calls and says he is hammering the fish, and when you show up, things have cooled considerably.

Corny quips like "That's why they call it fishing and not catching" and "A bad day on the water is better than a good day in the office" have been coined to mitigate the disappointment. And, of course, being outside is better than being inside, but not catching fish when you expected to is a drag.

I will say that with a long history of catching and not catching, I am a little more likely these days to just up and head to the lake. I have even used my experiences as excuses to show up ill-prepared.

I was down in Arkansas chasing stripers on Norfork last week. It was one of those days that I deemed a fairly decent day, but the guide was disappointed by the results based on what had been happening in recent days. Up on the dock, as I prepared to head north, Jim Brentlinger asked what I was doing the next day. I knew it wasn't my anniversary or my wife's birthday, and I had made no other fishing plans.

Getting away with "Baby, I have to stay down here and work another day" is one of the great privileges of being an outdoor writer. I mean, how am I going to pay the mortgage if I don't go fishing?

So it was set.

Trout are considerate fish. They don't require that you be on the water as the sun comes up in order to catch them. It wasn't until about 8:30 a.m. that Jim and I arrived at the boat ramp in Norfork at the confluence of the Norfork and the White rivers.

Those of you familiar with these fisheries know that the amount of water being generated from the respective upstream dams determines how fishing will be and how best to approach your angling. I am certainly not up on it like the local guys who watch it every day, but it is my impression that in the winter they tend to run a lot of water to generate electricity and make sure lakes are prepared to receive spring rains.

It also seems to me that you can catch fish in whichever condition you find yourself, but different anglers have their preferences. Fly rodders like the low stuff, while many of the boaters have found fast water productive. Frankly, with me, it's all good.

Jim had told me that a lady client of his has caught a grand slam two days earlier: a rainbow, cutthroat, brown and brook trout. He may have regretted that, because I decided I wanted to catch a brook trout. I had only caught a few in my life and it has been a long time. I had never caught one in the Ozarks.

So up the Norfork we traveled. They were running both generators at the dam, the same as they had been when the lady angler slammed them.

Jim is one of those guys who likes the fast water. We once got together after a huge spring rain that sent floodwater down into the White from the Buffalo River and loaded up on nice brown trout by casting into the pockets along the shore that were protected from the current. That would pretty much be the strategy on the Norfork this day.

I have found that catching a fish on the first cast can be bad luck. Well, I had cranked only a few rotations on my reel handle when a big brown slammed my gold Rapala. He boiled near the surface briefly enough to identify himself before he spit the hook. I made a comment — one that my editors won't publish — and cast back at the bank. As I reeled, I wondered whether the first-cast curse applied to fish lost.

It was immediately evident that it wasn't going affect my partner. His first fish was a stocky cutthroat. Jim went on to catch about five rainbows before I finally found a brown trout without any concerns how my previous casts had turned out.

We would drift downstream from the dam a ways, and then buzz back up and try our drift again. I understand that just below the Norfork Dam is one of the few spots in the Ozarks one can reliably expect to catch a brookie. But as might be expected, I would not catch my brook trout on this day. Oh, well. That will just be a good excuse to get back down that way again soon.

But the rainbows and browns were more than cooperative, and we were catching good-size fish.

The plan all along was just to fish a few hours because of real-world commitments we both had that afternoon. As we buzzed back downstream toward the ramp, my memories of Jim's cutthroat dissolved into visions of bacon frying and a carton of eggs set out next to the stove. I have also found in my experience that catching fish can make you hungry.