Outdoors | Hearing rarely comes into play while you’re fishing

After a lifetime of largely unbridled activity, I’ve found that embracing old age is a challenge.

Hopefully, the latest geriatric attribute—a diminished sense of hearing—will not extend into my angling life. As one fishing buddy tells it, his domestic partner told him to face the facts.

“You have issues,” she told me. “Your back is compromised. You are deaf in one ear and you don’t smell so good either.”

I laughed. “You can take the last comment two ways.”

He nodded his head, but it’s not clear he took in my remark. Hard-of-hearing people are good at faking conversation.

“Did you hear the turn signal?” he asked, when I gestured for him to turn the switch off after we had traveled another two miles down the freeway.

To be fair, I often fail to respond to the subtle click of my truck’s turn signal. In fact, Nancy takes great pride in reminding me when the signal is still on. “Don’t you hear it?” she says.

I’m quick to reply that a captivating song on the radio or the clack of studded tires on asphalt may have muffled the tone. Unfortunately, her remarks about an ongoing slump in my aural faculty extends to our home life. If I ask Nancy to turn up the sound on the TV when an actor whispers or mumbles their lines, she invariably remarks, “Are you deaf?”

Her presumptuous comments are ignored, as is the regular reminder, “I wish you would take a hearing test,” when a full-page spread in the daily news advertises free hearing evaluations or the “Miracle Ear” commercial shows up on her favorite nostalgic TV channel. “It’s not like you have to wear headphones,” she says. “The new hearing aids are so tiny you can’t see them.”

“What makes you think I can’t hear?” I reply.

“Because you don’t say anything when I talk to you.”

Fishing buddies rarely complain about a partner’s lack of hearing. Then again, guys don’t talk so much when we are on the water. We rely on grunts, a hand wave, or nod of our head to communicate. I know my fishing buddy is interested in what I have to say when he turns his head and points his good ear my direction.

He knows I am ready to pull up anchor and head to the next fishing spot when I put my rod down and look off into space. I sense that he forgot to pack a lunch when he looks longingly at my dried-up baloney and cheese sandwich. The only time we raise our voice is when someone needs to go for the net.

In my younger days, I often wondered, why do old people speak in such a loud voice?

Now that I have reached my golden years, I’m thinking it’s because a friend’s or family member’s initial response to conversation is often, “What?”

There’s no yelling on the stream because it will scare the fish away. As for my home life, the excuses for not picking up on what Nancy has to say are numerous. Maybe I’m running water in the kitchen or bathroom sink. Maybe the dishwasher or washing machine is flowing full blast.

Or, maybe I had wandered in to the garage to organize my fishing tackle before she initiated conversation. On the other hand, she senses when I steal one of her Valentine’s Day chocolates by the crinkle sound of foil-wrapped paper in the next room.

Admittedly, my left ear shut down once. Everything sounded like a hollow echo. The nearly constant ringing in my ears alerted me to the front doorbell. Rather than open the door and confirm to Nancy that my hearing was tainted, I snuck an occasional peek out the window.

Although not so dizzy I would fall out of a boat, I made a hurried appointment to the doctor’s office where his nurse flushed out enough cerumen to make a votive candle.

I confirmed that my hearing had returned to normal two days later when a hard-of-hearing fishing buddy dropped a half-ounce lead-head jig on the bottom of my aluminum boat.

He gave no sign that he heard the distinct metallic clang, possibly intent on catching his fifteenth smallmouth bass of the afternoon. Knowing his eyesight remained keen, I made a mental note to add the errant jig to my tackle box when he wasn’t looking my direction.