Since the author’s fishing options were limited during a visit to the Canary Islands, he indulged with dinner and enjoyed this delicious “bocinegro,” the Spanish preparation of the red porgy or pagrus pagrus fish.

In 1969, Swiss-American psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The Kübler-Ross Model, as it became known, is the standard in grief management, despite the attempts of others hungry for money, power and book sales to increase that to seven or even nine stages.

Grief is not limited to death or illness, as anyone who watched the final seasons of “How I Met Your Mother” or “Lost” well know.

Stage 1: Denial

Fishing opportunities are few in the most overregulated country not ruled by a dictator, Germany, so I took my first opportunity to use leave and escape to warmer climes.

Thanksgiving is not a European holiday, so I was able to seize upon a cheap flight to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of Africa’s Sahara Desert.

Lufthansa Airlines made an announcement on the intercom to board, so I checked the app and went to Gate B3. They had boarded about 30 minutes early, but the gate agent checked my boarding pass, rushed me downstairs, and loaded me onto a bus. As this airport was designed to punish people for traveling, almost every flight out of Frankfurt International requires a shuttle bus.

As I made my way to my seat, I noticed someone was in it. Her boarding pass showed the same seat. It was at this moment I asked the flight attendant, who informed me this flight was going to another of the Canaries.

I deplaned and proceeded to wait in the frigid cold for my shuttle bus. It took 20 minutes to arrive and another 10 before I was able to get to the right gate, B8, where, despite being just three minutes past boarding, they would not let me on. I showed the gate agent the erroneous gate on the app, and she apologized, questioned how their system could have broken down to let me on the wrong flight to begin with. Great question. It was certainly a security concern.

Unfortunately, it also meant I would be losing 10 hours to catch the next flight, this one through Iberia Airlines.

Ten hours later, I arrived in Gran Canaria to find neither my suitcase nor my rod case had arrived. Irritated, I filed a claim with the missing luggage office, and they told me both would arrive the next evening.

How do two separate airlines mess up so badly on the same day? I wondered, my blood pressure spiking.

Stage 2: Anger

With the clothes on my back, an emergency toiletries kit meant to last a day or two and two extra pairs of undies, I was prepared for 24 hours of Spartan life. Sure, I wanted my gear, but I had a boat trip the next day, and I’d be fishing, at least.

I bought sunscreen and water and went on the boat.

Later that night, I returned to the airport to find no luggage.

Five trips and three days later, still no luggage.

Best of all, two of the three Iberia staffers who worked at the small airport were immensely rude, which made the process that much more painful.

One told me “That’s not my job. Go find another Iberia office.”

In her defense, there were three to choose from, all spaced about 500 yards (OK, meters) apart in the long strip of an airport. The farthest one from parking was closed, the middle one staffed by the Employee of the Month, and the one she referenced sat farthest from baggage claim.

He was equally rude and told me I’d have to wait for him to take a smoke break.

Furious, I said, “I’ll just wait and walk with you.”

Instead of walking there, he smoked, then took a service entrance around back that I could not access to get there. It was 20 minutes before he arrived.

My luggage still wasn’t there.

I lived in the anger stage for several days.

Stage 3: Bargaining

This was brief. I basically begged anyone who worked at Iberia to give me information. The Gran Canaria airport staff (except one nice gentleman working the night shift) refused. The customer service number kept giving me the wrong info.

I tried renting a rod and some gear from my charter captain on the first day, but he declined.

Powerless, I didn’t really have any bargaining power, so I skipped right to depression. Well, depressed people don’t skip, so I guess I kind of ambled to depression with my head down, like Snoopy (Peanuts) or George Michael Bluth (Arrested Development).

Stage 4: Depression

Whenever I wasn’t at the airport or on the phone, angry and irritated, I was wallowing in self-pity. I’d come to the island to fish — that was it. But I couldn’t fish.

I spent those nights deeper in my feels than a Nicholas Sparks reader but far less entertained.

Since I follow other anglers on other islands in the Canaries, I finally stopped using Instagram because it just made me sad to see what they were catching.

Stage 5: Acceptance

I had traveled in jeans, a T-shirt, and hiking boots, but it was a subtropical island, and I needed something more comfortable. Every night, I’d wash my sweat-soaked T-shirt, socks and undies in the sink with the little shampoos that had been provided by my Airbnb host. Then, I’d air-dry them because though Europe is technically considered Developed by the United Nations, it still resists innovations like dryers and dishwashers and air ventilation systems. Understandable. It would be foolhardy to rush into adopting something that had only been widely used for a century or so.

Fishing was off the table, so I did try to enjoy the desert island’s other limited offerings, but shopping only has so much appeal.

I did learn that most beaches here were top-optional or at least didn’t enforce modesty. Some readers might be excited to hear that, but most of the women exercising that option were twice my age and had already lost battles with gravity and their local panaderia (bakery).

I got a haircut. I got a massage. I exercised. I went out to dinner a few times. I cried myself to sleep a few times. So really not all that different from my life when not on vacation.

After my fifth trip to the airport in three days (each trip a two-plus-hour endeavor), I finally accepted that I wouldn’t get my luggage. I was forced to buy new clothes, toiletries and just enough fishing gear to actually be able to fish on my fishing trip. I know, selfish.

Though I was unable to target the massive stingrays or morays that brought me to the island in the first place, I did get a tiny travel rod that would fit into my new, drastically low-quality suitcase. I also used a handline, which I tied to my finger and used to catch a few small fish on my final evening.

On my final day, as I was loading my car to leave for the airport, I got a call from Iberia informing me they were delivering my luggage. My rods arrived after checking out of my Airbnb and just minutes before I returned to the airport for my departing flight. My suitcase was (and is still) AWOL.

As fishing trips go, it was the worst. The weather was nice, and the limited fishing I got in was productive, but you can bet I’ll be going full Karen with Lufthansa and Iberia the next few weeks as I continue to grieve for my trip.