I must be getting old.

It was 5 a.m., the sky was clear, the wind calm, the sun still hadn’t peeked over the horizon, and there was just enough crispness in the air to get the blood flowing. In other words, it was a picture perfect morning for fishing.

And I chose to stay in bed.

Oh, I did try to get up, drawn by visions of finally hooking that really big walleye and landing it in the boat. In fact, I may have even managed to get one foot on the floor.

But then that little voice inside my head pierced through the waves of sleepiness and screamed, “ARE YOU NUTS?!” The brain won out, and it was back to the pillow with barely a second thought or regret.

After all, I reasoned, I wouldn’t get up at 5 a.m. to go golfing any more, either.

It was a different story in years past. I’d have been out of bed in an instant, no matter how late we had stayed up the night before, eager to cruise Swell Bay or the ’Gut with “Debo,” whose prowess with a lindy rig and leech is surpassed only by his ability to sniff out a walleye at 50 yards (or so legend has it).

I’ve gotten up at 5 a.m. to go fishing even though it was over an hour’s drive to the lake–and then a good 15-minute portage in. We’d be lucky to wet a line by 8:30.

Heck, I’ve even risen when the stars were still out, and the mercury frozen at 40 below, to go ice fishing of all things.

But not Sunday. “Debo” was ready, the boat was docked 100 feet from the cabin at Taylor’s Cove, the conditions were ideal, and I had reeled up a nice 21-inch beauty the day before on my first walleye outing of the year.

Yet there was no way I could get out of bed.

Laziness? Old age? Or maybe I was the only one who had any brains. Because the gang came back around 8 a.m. with just two “keepers” in the cooler (although, to their defence, they said they had to throw back a few that were well over the slot size).

Oh, and my wife said she got a nice picture of the sun rise.

And then, when I was rarin’ to go after a hearty breakfast, rested and alert and all that, “Capt. Debo” was snoring on the couch.

Evidently he’s getting old, too.