One of My Fishing Stories

I began my love for fishing when I was about five years old.

I’m sure at least one of my five older siblings taught me to where to find worms, how to bait a hook and cast my line, but I fished for almost a year before catching my first. I spent every available moment down along the creek that meandered through our rural dairy farm, watching those elusive fins casually swim up to my hook, nibble on the worm, then just as casually, go on to better fare. Sometimes I would lie down in the grass and hang my head and pole over the side of the bank and watch them flit along the stream bottom like underwater butterflies, never going near whatever food in the form of bait that I might have brought that day. I fed the tiny schools of minnows bits of my sandwich, if I had thought to bring a lunch on my all-day ventures, and sometimes simply tossed worms into the water for them. It was about seven in the morning when I caught my first fish and since nobody had taught me how to carry it (I hadn’t ever caught one before), I kept dropping it in the dirt on my way up to the house, as I excitedly screamed at the top of my lungs. My small voice carried in that valley; everyone came running to see what was going on! I don’t remember the details of that first fish or it being much of a struggle to catch anything after that, and over the years I participated in and won least one part of our family’s periodic fishing contests of “The First, The Biggest, and The Most.”

I was always game when someone wanted a fishing ‘buddy’; one time my new stepson and I went fishing out on the lake in our motorboat. He snagged, then reeled in one of the largest fish he had ever hooked. I netted it, hooked my finger into the gills, pulled it out of the net, and before he could open the cooler, it flipped off of my hand and flopped back into the water. I looked at my stepson in horror; my stepson looked like he was going to throw me in after it.

I fished with my uncle one time; we caught a whole stringer of catfish! I learned how and even to this day, though I’m sure I’m rusty, can probably clean a catfish in under a minute, a skill very few know I possess (except for you, now *grin*).

Over the years, I figured out that fishing, for me, was not about actually catching anything, it was about the comradery that is shared when standing on a bank with other like-minded people, drowning a few worms. It was also about the stillness and solitude. There is something to be learned from contemplating life and regrouping as you watch a river flow by or see the ripples on a lake form, when the quietness is only interrupted by whatever wildlife happens to be up with you at that hour.

I have a confession to make here. I enjoyed that solitude so much that there were many times I tied just a weight and no hook onto the end of my line and cast it out onto the water so that I could ponder life in peace. People loaded down with gear would pass me by, see nothing on my stringer, and comment, “No luck?” When I’d nod, they’d commiserate, then move on to their favorite spots to get set up for the day. Me? I’d continue to sit there and smile as I watched their little ones cast fishing lines and sometimes the whole poles out into the water. And life would go on, just like that. I’d reel my line in, they’d see the sinker and no hook and commiserate about that too, thinking that some big fish broke my line. I never enlightened them.

Alas, my fishing days ended though.

My last fishing trip took place about three days into a hunting trip I was a part of. We were done for the day and back at camp, which was right on the bank of a lake. I figured to drown a few worms while relaxing from the hours spent hunting. I readied my line, put a bobber on it, then cast my line into the water, found a place to sit, and turned back around to face the lake. My bobber was no longer floating on the surface. I stood up, reeled my line in and caught a thirteen-inch trout. I was not prepared to catch anything, so I grabbed a bucket, filled it with lake water and plopped the fish into the bucket. I recast my line, turned around and sat down, only to find my bobber gone again. This time it was an ten-inch bass. I put him with the trout and recast my line. Same thing, six times before I realized nobody in my hunting party was going to eat that many fish! I released all but the two largest, put my gear away, and have not fished at all since. It wasn’t fun anymore, not being able to simply slow the world down, even for a few hours.

I have fond memories of those slower times. The world needs more moments like that, to simply slow down, contemplate life, and regroup.