Reeling In Time with Fish Tales. Brian E. Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ and I walked back to the lake with our fish still dangling from our fishing lines. Dad pulled a nylon stringer from his tackle box. The stringer was just a heavy cord with a metal ring on one end and a four-inch metal spike crimped to the other. He unhooked his fish first. While he still had his fish in hand, he slipped the metal spike underneath the gill plate, out the fish’s mouth, and ran the spike back through the ring to secure his fish to the end of the stringer. Holding the spike end of the stringer, he tossed his fish into the lake, dropped the spike end, and stepped on it, holding it solidly to the ground.

      “Champ, let me show you something.” I came up to him with my fish that was barely flipping and worn out. A foot above the fish, Dad pinched the line between his thumb and forefinger on his right hand. Using his left hand, he formed a circle around the line with his thumb and forefinger; he then slid his left hand down the line and let it form over the fish until he had a firm grasp on the fish with just its head sticking out from his hand. “Did you see how that worked?”

      “Dad, you just grabbed the fish; what’s the big deal?”

      “Watch.” He let go of the fish. “Did you see that?” He pointed out that when he let go, the fish stuck its dorsal (top), pectoral (side), and pelvic (bottom) fins out. “Those fins are sharp as needles; they’re a defense mechanism to protect the fish. As long as the fish doesn’t have teeth, sliding the fish through your hand like this—he did it again—brushes the fins down so they won’t poke you.”

      “It’s always something new, isn’t it, Dad?” I sighed.

      “Let’s do some more fishing!” And we did! The game was on, no more explaining things. Well, almost. He told me to reel the fish in and not take it for a sprint up the bank again.

      Dad pinned a couple more worms on our hooks and we couldn’t finish a sentence before one cork would be yanked down, then the next. It went on and on as long as there was bait in the water. Some of the fish were big enough to go on the stringer, but most were a bit smaller and we tossed them back. It didn’t matter what size the fish was; every one of them was fun to catch.

      “What about those crickets, Dad?”

      “You’re right, Champ, I’ve been a touch lazy. We went through the trouble to get them and bring them. Let me show you how to use them correctly. When I have a bird in the hand, it is hard to go for the one in the bush, Champ. The worms were catching fish so well, I kept using them.” The cricket tube was lying next to the worm bucket. “Quick, let me show you something.” I could tell by his tone and action that this wasn’t going to be a long drawn out lesson. Dad had fishing fever.

      “Pull the cork, shake one of the critters down the funnel into the palm of your hand, then loosely close your hand around the cricket, turn the tube pointy end up, and replace the cork. Always replace the cork or you’ll end up on a cricket rodeo. Shake your hand with the cricket in it toward the thumb to motivate the cricket, between your thumb and forefinger. Champ, this takes feel; feel that comes with practice, not explanation.”

      He jostled the insect about in his hand until it lay face down on his forefinger underneath his thumb. “Come close, you have to see what I’m doing.” I leaned over his hand, watching him take the hook with his other hand, turn it sideways and slip it forward, toward the head, underneath a hard flap that covered what I would call the cricket’s neck. “That part is called the collar.” He guided the hook halfway under the collar, then turned it up and gently wiggled it until it punctured all the way through. Using the fishing line, he lifted the cricket away from his hand. The cricket squirmed in the air, firmly attached to the hook.

      “Champ, that cricket doesn’t know it’s hung on a hook. It’s not hurt and it will behave naturally. Whenever possible, hook live bait so the hook does the least amount of damage and the live bait acts natural. Generally, natural action produces more bites.”

      “Imagine if you will, Mom sends us to Browns’ Turkey Farm to pick out a turkey for Thanksgiving. Given the choice of all the birds, would you pick out a big, strutting, pretty turkey or would you pick the dirty one, limping along the fence line?”

      “Dad, I don’t like to think about hurting a turkey, but I get what you’re saying.”

      “Champ, think about all the effort we put into collecting the live bait and getting it here in good shape; why would we go through all that trouble just to kill it right before we need it most?”

      “Dad, there is more to this fishing thing than I realized, isn’t there? There’s always something more than meets the eye. The guys on TV make it look easy, hauling in fish after fish.”

      “It’s the same way with anything you’re going to do well, you not only have to know what you’re doing, but why you’re doing it the way you are.”

      Together we flipped our crickets into the lake. You could see the crickets slowly sink. Their little legs paddled as they went down. Flash! A tea-saucer sized something sped by, took my bait before my eyes, and yanked my rod tip down before I had a chance to do anything.

      “Reel, Champ, reel!” I was on it.

      “It’s a big one, Dad!” That fish darted left, right, up and down, and then again. At times, I couldn’t reel; at times, I forgot to reel. Somehow, after what seemed forever, I managed to get the fish close enough so Dad could get hold of the line, bringing it in the rest of the way.

      “Dad, that’s the biggest one!” The bream weighed almost a pound. I jumped in Dad’s arms “I love crickets!” Over Dad’s shoulder, I noticed a fish flopping on the shore. I hadn’t noticed, but he had caught a fish while I was dancing with mine. It was bigger than mine was, but he was happier for me.

      He took my fish off, put another cricket on my hook, and sent me fishing. By the time he had his on the stringer, I had another bream on the bank. It was a good one, too.

      “Champ, we got twelve or fifteen fish on the stringer. I think that is plenty for dinner. Let’s start throwing them back.”

      “I don’t care, Dad; I’m having fun just catching them.” We spent the next hour or so feeding the fish crickets until we ran out of crickets.

      “You ready, Champ?”

      “Sure, Dad.”

      “Give the rest of them a treat; sling this corn in the water.” Handful after handful, I peppered the water with corn. I wondered why we didn’t use it when fish started to come in and eat the corn as it sank. Oh well, at least I found out the corn was good bait, too.

      The last two handfuls I scattered around the picnic table to make amends with the gulls. A flock of gulls hovered around as Dad and I picked up our stuff from the table. He carried most of the gear and I had the fishing poles and worm bucket.

      “Dad, I think the birds are still ticked off; one just painted my head!” He wiped my head off with his handkerchief, laughing all the while.

      At the car, Dad popped the trunk, putting the fish in a five-gallon bucket he had inside it. He put the rest of the fishing gear in the trunk, too. In the front seat, he tossed the knapsack, and then he arranged the fishing poles in the back seat.

      “Hop in, Champ!” We had our lunches of lukewarm Coke, Fritos, and PB&Js in the car on the ride back to the house, while I gave a recap of every bream I’d caught.

      “Do you remember that one, Dad, СКАЧАТЬ