We knew that the rules for fishing season were good rules. The Department of Fish and Wildlife determines when people can fish during the year so the fish population is best protected. During the time we were not allowed to fish, the fish would be spawning. We figured that was good; it meant more fish in the long run. But we didn’t much like not being able to fish when we wanted to.

We were the members of the Ship Creek Otters Club and we were certain that Otters should be able to fish when they wanted to, rules or no rules. The Ship Creek Otters was a rather elite club of which I was a charter member. At 10 and 11 years of age, we were creative and adventurous when it came to establishing rules of membership. There were never exceptions to the rules of membership.

But during summer vacation of 1971, Ron, Larry and I decided that the rules of the Department of Fish and Wildlife should bend to our purposes. The fishing season was closed, but we wanted to fish.

We had a full month until the season opened, so we came up with a creative idea. It’s not that we didn’t respect the rules. In fact, our solution involved not really fishing until the season opened. We decided we would just change the residence of about 50 fish from the creek to a nearby pond we had discovered. No one would ever find out the pond had fish in it since it was nicely hidden. Should we be caught in the act of fishing, we could explain that we were not really fishing.

The plan was perfect since it would provide a great place to fish once the season opened. All we needed was a large bucket, some fishing line (we could not be seen carrying fishing poles), and some hooks and bait. We went about it with great enthusiasm and in just a short time we had a pond teaming with 6 inch to 10 inch rainbow trout! When the season opened, we really did catch these fish and felt rather proud of ourselves for pulling it off.

This feeling of pride often occurs when we humans bend rules to our purposes without breaking them. Unfortunately, bending rules doesn’t usually work out as well as our fish relocation summer did. Most rules, especially divinely instituted rules, are truly good for us, and most people respond well when good rules help shape our personal and social morality. We can be thankful that God’s great foresight regarding human nature has helped establish rules that are, as Psalm 119:105 puts it, a light that brightens our path.