For Father’s day this year, the wife and I went out fishing.
If you know me, one of the top ten stories that I tell—coming in at number seven—is why I don’t actually like to fish.
It’s not just because I’m from the prairies, and fish wasn’t a staple of my diet. No.
It isn’t even because, when I was six year’s old and we were eating fish for supper, my dad told a story about a man who got a fish bone caught in his throat, and it stayed there for years, slowly calcifying until one day he started to choke on it and had to go for surgery…. I of course was convinced I had a fish bone stuck in my throat after that, and for years I could feel it, still in there, still scratching my throat….
No, it’s because when I was about ten year’s old, my family joined my uncle’s family at a cabin on the lake for a week long summer vacation.
The lake was home to all manner of pike (aka water wolves, hammer handles, jackfish or—less charitably—snot rockets), but also a rather large population of perch.
Perch are a small fish (generally weighing in at about a pound or so), but are also pretty tasty and, despite the fact that I could still feel that phantom fish bone in my throat, I was entranced by the thought of “bobbing for perch,” and myself and my cousin (who was about the same age as I was) would spend all day fishing.
For the non-anglers in the crowd, this involved walking to the end of the boat dock, putting a small hook on the end of the line, then letting out about ten to twelve feet of line and lowering it into the water, then just sitting there, waiting.
Well, no, there’s one more step. To make sure the hook stayed a couple inches above the bottom of the lake, we put a float on the line at about the eight foot mark. When the float would dip below the water, it meant we had a bite, and we’d yank on the rod and quickly pull the fish out.
I remember it was at the end of another hot Saskatchewan summer, with the sun having just disappeared behind the trees at the west end of the lake; the sky was a deep bluish purple, fading to yellow where the sun had just gone down.
We were just wrapping up—I had literally just wound in the four or five feet of line on my rod, but I hadn’t yet taken off the float—when there was a splash 20 or 30 feet off the dock.
“Look!” I’m pretty sure I didn’t say, “a fish!”
So, with the wrong type of hook to catch a pike, a float and ten feet of line dangling below, I made a super awkward cast out towards where the fish had surfaced. I began reeling the line in. “I think I got something!” I’m pretty sure I said. Then, when it didn’t really do what a fish is supposed to do and fight, “no, it’s seaweed.”
But then the seaweed tugged. “It’s a fish!” I may or may not have exclaimed again. Then…nothing. “Or maybe not.”
As it got closer to the dock, something splashed again. “It is a fish! It is!” I’m sure I didn’t say.
I got it close to the dock, but was unable to pull…whatever it was, in, because of the line below the float. So I backed up and my cousin helped retrieve the fish that I had caught.
Because I had caught fish. Not a fish. Fish. Eight of them in total, all attached to a chain.
These days, you aren’t allowed to keep live fish on a stringer, but back then, it was common practice to attach the fish you caught to a chain that dangled off the side of the boat while they were still alive.
Apparently, someone had lost their stringer and the fish had just swam off, making their way to the dock, where I managed to catch them again. Eight fish. One cast. Of the catch, one of the fish was dead, but the other seven were still alive and fighting, though not very well, and each sort of struggling their own way.
“Great,” I know I didn’t say, but 40 years of repeating the story has added this part. “How am I going to top that fishing story?”
Because I don’t really like eating fish, the only reason to fish is for the stories that fishing inspires, and there was no way I was going to top catching eight fish with one cast.
I didn’t give up fishing all at once, but over the next few years, it became less and less popular a past time, and I had all but abandoned the pursuit.
A couple or four years ago now, though, my wife—who is from the west coast and loves fish—decided that fishing was her favourite past time. So she bought a bunch of gear, and inherited some of George Rowe’s self-tied flies.
She’s still not an expert, but loves to go fishing, and I enjoy going out with her, driving the boat and listening to a book. (Currently, Twelve Months, by Jim Butcher.)
But, as it was family fishing weekend, she encouraged me to drag a line behind the boat. Fishing is her thing, but what makes her happy makes me happy, so I complied.
I managed to snag a couple six inchers (sorry, 15cm-ers), but they both got away.
She, on the other hand, managed to catch a fairly average size fish (about 35 cm or so) then an above average fish (45 cm) and then a monster, which was at least 50 cm, maybe more.
Large enough to maybe win next weekend’s fishing derby.
This last one she was proud of, but also worried that it was spawning, because of the bright pink stripe along its side. She has been told that spawning fish aren’t as tasty, so she put it in her bucket and brought it over to where Sergeant Bill was fishing with his wife, about 100 metres away.
He told her that if it was spawning it would be bright red, and that pink was okay.
Colette, proud of her catch, grabbed it out of the bucket and held it up for them to see.
The fish gave a mighty sweep of it’s tail, and managed to wriggle out of her hands, falling back into the lake, where it awaits being snagged again at next week’s fishing derby.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
