The Big Decision of the Week

As I write this is is 80 degrees and humid. It is 9 pm and the temperature feels like an  August night. Still, I know that fall weather is right around the corner. Any day now could go from a beautiful seventy five to a chilly 45. I'm still going to be outside during crisp fall weather. However, before that happens I want to do as many of my warm weather activities as I can.

Which leads to this week's dilemma, what to do on my days off this week? My two options are go to the ocean and fish for albies. There is certainly the chance they have left and won't be back again.

The other option is to go hiking in New Hampshire. Assuming the weather is decent, I could hike two more four thousand footers. This would leave me only three more hikes next year to join the 4000 footers club. One of my goals this year was to hike enough mountains to be able to finish them next year. It would be a lot easier to finish them with three hikes instead of five.

I won't go to New Hampshire and hike if twenty two miles if it is going to be rainy. So assuming the weather will be fall like, then the mountains are "a sure bet"

The albies on the other hand are a gamble. They could still be around, they might not be. You may be asking, why gamble on the fish, go enjoy your weekend? The answer, albies are here for such a short amount of time. If I have the opportunity to catch  them I should. I do think about them all year. 

I try to do pluses and minuses for decisions like this. I try to think about best and worst case scenarios. As I said, if its raining, I'm not going to NH. That said, if it rains, there probably won't be any albies either. 

I am going to 'gansett on Tuesday. I have a surfcasters meeting anyway. That day I'll go to the ocean and fish after I get out of work until the meeting. If I somehow walk into a bunch of albies then I'll probably stay home. If I don't see any, I will be extremely interested to know if any are caught on Wednesday.

The worst case scenario would be to go fishing on Tuesday and see just enough breaking way out to keep me interested. That would suck. If I saw some breaking a quarter mile from shore, I'd obviously hope they would come close enough to catch. If they don't I'll wonder if they are moving on or just not near shore that day. 

Decisions, decisions!

Author's note. I understand this is a good problem to have. There are much more serious problems we all face than wonder if I should fish or hike. That said, I'd prefer not to bring my real world problems onto my blog ( like I was robbed last week and my bank doesn't want to give me the money back from my stolen credit card!) so I concentrate on the things that make me most happy. That is why I write about hiking vs fishing, albies, and birding.