A fishing story

In honor of Memorial Day and the official start of summer, I'd like to share my only fishing story. Like all the best ones, I have no evidence whatever that it actually happened, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I haven't been fishing since, not because of what happened (though it would be just like me to develop a phobia) but because I never got the hang of grabbing the fish after you catch it. Not being able to do this makes fishing pretty pointless, and after your grandfathers die there's nobody left to do it for you.

My only fishing story comes from a trip the family took to Wisconsin when I was about ten. My dad's grandfather had a place up near Hayward, and we used to go every year, so my parents could relax, and I could freak out. Strange place, strange people, strange rules, strange schedule, strange smells. No books. What little sports equipment I could find had inevitably been broken by my much more athletic Aryan step-cousins. Every day brought something new that I wasn't very good at--or very interested in. My only possible escape was to be cheerful, try really hard and hope for the best. It was "A Boy Called Horse," with occasional trips into town to get fudge.

One day I was fishing with my dad and uncles for muskies, big nasty late-Cretaceous Period items with lots of sharp teeth and no grasp of right and wrong, justice or mercy. You can tell how nasty they are by the size of the lures we were using: chunks of fish-like plastic as big as two of your thumbs. They had multiple hooks on them--apparently one isn't sufficient to get a muskie's attention.

I should start out by saying that I had been raised in an extremely urban, artistic, all-female environment. Putting me out in a boat in the middle of a Wisconsin lake with my dad and uncle--you might as well have drafted me. I remember strangers shouting advice from nearby boats. I was simply out there hoping to get through the day without having to poop over the side of the boat or otherwise humiliate myself.

It wasn't so bad; after the alcohol had kicked in and the adults started to relax, I began to enjoy myself, too. We spent the entire day fishing with no success--we went to every spot, tried going deep, tried going shallow, even tried casting near submerged logs and such. There was only the occasional lure-in-tree moment. It should not surprise you to know that I was convinced I would catch somebody's ear with every back-cast, and then for the rest of my life, every time I'd see my uncle or father, I'd be confronted with the big hole the backwoods doctor had to cut in their ear to get the lure out. I was also terrified of getting lured myself, but less so; if that happened, I would just be cheerful and muddle through.

Anyway, the sun's going down and it's getting cold--it never gets truly WARM on a shady Wisconsin lake, even in the summer, which suggests that what we call "a muskellunge" is in fact some sort of horrific beast from the cold wastes beyond the Van Allen belt. Look at it: the first muskie (possibly in larval form) doubtless rode to Earth on a meteor, plopped into a lake, and took it over. More evidence for this comes from the fact that there was (apparently) nothing else in the lake. The muskies had systematically eaten every other fish, and were now mouthing plants, dirt and the occasional rock. In addition to making suggestions to each other like, "Why don't you swim into that hole and see what's in it?...Of course you won't get stuck, don't be a pussy!...I'll wait out here."

So by the time we get to Lake Thunderdome, it's basically a moon crater filled with icy water and the most ruthless, amoral, cunning bunch of fish imaginable. The ones near the bottom were wearing SS uniforms. The ones deeper than that were plotting to take over the world. These are the things we're trying to catch, god knows why. Perhaps so they can jump into our boat, snip our hamstrings with one scissor of their jaws, then leap away, laughing or doing whatever muskies do in those fleeting moments when they aren't pissed. Or maybe a whole bunch of them will rush the boat, and tip us into the water, after which they can pick us off, one-by-one, at their leisure.

In an effort to distract myself from thoughts like this, I have concentrated all day on making sure my reel doesn't get tangled. To do this you've got to wind the line through your thumb and forefinger. After a day of nothing--nobody's line has so much as shimmied since we got there--everybody takes a final cast, and we all discuss how we're going to "spin" our dismal failure. Fishing is a lot about putting a good face on disappointment, arranging it in your head so that it doesn't crush you. In this way it's a lot like life. One uncle plans to blame the weather (too dry--they come up after a rain); another says it's too hot (they stay down, where it's cool--and also out of the reach of local law enforcement). As I recall my father's opinion--or maybe it was his grandfather's--was that we didn't get out there early; it was a moral failure.

So I'm listening to this, winding the thick, wet strand through my fingers when suddenly, BAM! The reel buzzes like a wasp as something big hauls out line. Before I can whip my fingers away, a groove 1/4 inch deep has been dug out of both my thumb and forefinger. Given that my 10-year-old fingers weren't that large to begin with, this is a significant slice and it starts hurting like a bitch. Blood isn't a problem, however--I'm holding on to the pole much too tightly for that.

Finally the fish gets tired, or complacent (it's shown me who's boss), and slows for a second. Now I was nothing if not gritty as a kid, so I grab the handle and start cranking, dragging the fish back towards me. If it had been just me in the boat, there's no way I would've been able to beat Mr. Muskie, but after I got tired, I handed it to my dad, who handed it to my uncle when HE got tired. (Their periodic grunts and swearing made me feel a lot less weak.) I'm sitting there in the bow, sucking my injured fingers, when my dad says, "Get the net." It takes me a second or two to realize this sentence means, "Go to the side of the boat, and lean over towards the water, where all this fish's buddies--the guys smart enough to elude us all day--can leap at your eyes." It is a measure of how much I wanted to please my father that I did it anyway.

First there was splashing, as we finally got it near the surface. As the splashing grew closer, I started to wonder how the hell I was going to scoop up this very mean fish who almost certainly hated me the way a Hell's Angel does somebody who dents his bike. And in that moment, I suddenly saw the appeal of being drunk. But that was not an option; even if I could done a few quick shots, I had to keep both hands on the net--my goal was simply to keep the muskie away from my face, throat and groin until we beat it to death or trapped it in our cooler or whatever the adults were planning.

The fish thrashed by the side of the boat, really giving it everything. You could tell this was no longer fun for it, and it started getting truly angry. I caught a glimpse of its face as it rolled on its side for a second. Not only were there a lot of teeth jutting out like a Swiss Army knife waiting to be stepped on, there was a look in its eye: "I blame YOU."

I didn't have time to contemplate the possibilities for revenge or vendetta because everybody started yelling for me to scoop up the fish. Far from sure this was a good idea, I gave a few timid swipes, not nearly deep enough; the muskie dipped and flopped, skimming under the net with ease. (Apparently one of us had done this before.) My grittiness came to the fore again; if I was going to die--I was a dramatic child, and often thought in these terms--I was determined to die honorably. Putting my knees in the brackish water that had collected on the bottom of the boat, I leaned 'way over the edge, and dipped the net deep. Success! The lake water sprayed my glasses as the muskie thrashed. Blind, I brought it straight up out of the water--the fish was mine. I had won!

Everybody in both boats cheered. I remember being shocked at how heavy it was, and how I had to use my stomach and back to keep from plopping the fish-loaded net straight back down into the water. Just as I brought the twisting, shuddering net into the boat, the net suddenly flew up; there was another, final splash, and the net was empty. It took us a second to figure out what had happened: at the last minute--with one, effortless snip of its jaws--the muskie had bitten through the metal leader and the net below it.

It was gone; all we had was the story. My dad started the engine and the beat-up boat (my step-cousins no doubt) began to dig through the waves towards the shore. My fingers began to really kill, but it wasn't a bad pain--it was evidence, a mark, my Red Gouge of Courage. I hoped my mom would make a big deal out of my injury. I'm happy to report that she did.