The Birth of a Fisherman

You never get over the sight of your first bluegill or redbreast. Perhaps that’s why God made them so colorful: to fire up the memory banks of little boys and girls. So they never forget. So they’ll be hooked forever. So they will always return to the ponds and waters of their youth.

It was shaping up to be a day for the Daddy Diary. I was sitting, legs swinging carefree, on the well-worn dock of the family fishing pond, wearing Old Crusty, my lucky fishing hat that I have never washed, a T-shirt with ventilation holes at the armpits and a treble hook still embedded in the sleeve, and no shoes so I could dip a toe in the warm water every now and then.

     The kid was perched upon his hand-me-down tackle box packed tight with Star Wars and Transformers action figures, of course, and the occasional cork or artificial lure. A 10-pound test line was snarled around Yoda’s pointy, plastic ears.

     The kid’s imaginary friend, Jim, who sat on the dock beside him, kept snagging huge, imaginary fish who fought bravely, but so far the kid and I were catching mostly little fellas.

     The arthritic, bow-legged family dog, Dixie, pretended to nap on the sunny dock behind us but was secretly stalking the Ziploc bag of beef jerky and cheese puffs in my lap. You just can’t fish without beef jerky and cheese puffs, the kid pointed out before we left the house. I had taught him well. The Force is strong in this one, Yoda and Jim agreed.

     Suddenly, the shadow of a large bird passed over a pond surface rippled by wind and sun-stripped by the planks of the dock, reminding us we were not alone.

     “Daddy, what kind of bird is that?”

     “That’s an Oowee Bird,” I informed him because, of course, I had no idea exactly what it was.

     “What’s an Oowee Bird?”

     “An Oowee Bird has six-inch legs and a twelve-inch butt, and when he comes in for a landing he goes, ‘Oowee! Oowee! Oowee! Oowee!’”

     It took him a moment, but the kid got it and keeled over on the dock laughing theatrically. I scolded him for scaring the fish. Jim didn’t get it. Dixie didn’t laugh, either, but she opened one eye and stared at the beef jerky.

     “You know, I used to go fishing here at Granddaddy’s pond when I was your age. My granddaddy dug it himself with his own two hands.”

     “With a shovel?”

     “No, his bulldozer.”

     My cork bobbed deeply and suddenly from an enthusiastic bite. Dixie was pulling her bowed legs beneath her, no doubt getting ready to pounce on my beef jerky should I become distracted by a fighting fish. The kid pulled his line out of the water and dropped it back in. I couldn’t help but notice he dropped it mighty close to the ripple of my bite.

     “I remember one time, when I was fishing with my Daddy, I caught a world record bluegill. He was so big he had outgrown this pond. He lived half in the pond and half out of it and had fish slime on one side of him and fleas and ticks on the other!”

     Imaginary Jim believed me, but the kid gave me a funny look. Another large bite made my cork dance. I didn’t set the hook. This was a big one, and I wanted the kid to nab him.

     “I’ve always loved fishing, son. Heck, when me and your momma first got married, I’d lie awake at night with my Zebco 33 Classic in hand, my water boots still on and a life jacket for a pillow, just because I didn’t want to miss the first few rays of sunlight over the shallows during the spring bass spawn. For some reason your mother didn’t think that was a very romantic way to spend our honeymoon, though.”

     That one was a little over his head. And Jim’s, too. My cork bobbed again, but I ignored it. The kid sneaked his line a little closer to mine. The dog sneaked a little closer to the beef jerky and cheese puffs.

     “But what really made me feel guilty was the time I spent most of our family savings on a new twenty-foot fiberglass bass boat; you know, the one with the fancy foot-controlled trolling motor and the built-in depth finder and fish locator?”

     The kid nodded his head, not really listening anymore, never taking his eyes of my cork. By then he was practically on top of my line. Yet the big biter still seemed to favor the flavor of my bait. I could feel Dixie’s breath on the back of my shirt and hear her sniffing to see if there were any cheese puffs left or if it just going to be a straight jerky kind of day.

     “So what did Momma say about that?”

     “Well, she looked hopping mad at first, but after I told her that the bass boat was actually a new kind of gondola, like the kind they take romantic paddle cruises in along the waterways of Venice, and it was a gift for our anniversary, and I was even thinking about naming it after her, she got kind of speechless.”

     “To this day, she still gets so emotional about your sweet, romantic daddy and that wonderful gesture, that she gets all teary eyed and refuses to talk about it. Maybe one day, when she’s ready, I might actually take her to Venice and she what those Italian fish bite on…”

     My line bobbed again, and I thought for a moment that I had the fish, but luckily, I let him get off. Not everyone can play with a fish that way, but I’m skillful like that.

     “And did I ever tell you about the time I went into business and started my own fish farm and earthworm fish bait ranch?” I asked the kid. He shook his head, not really hearing me, totally mesmerized by the suspense of the corks. By now his line was completely tangled with mine.

     “I stocked my pond with hundreds and hundreds of cute little fish. And I bought about a thousand earthworms. Big, fat, juicy nightcrawlers. What I didn’t chase your Momma around the yard with – she hates those slimy, squishy things – I buried in the back forty of the ranch. But that first night I couldn’t sleep. Like any good farmer, I had to go check on the fish farm. And make sure no varmints were getting into the worm ranch and causing a stampede. And what if the fish had grown a little overnight? I was curious. Maybe if I caught just one, I could measure it to see.

     “Before I knew it, at least two or three nights a week I’d catch myself sneaking around, breaking and entering into my own fish farm. I’d slip under my own fence, real sneaky like in the dead of night, just to catch my own fish. I was out of control, and it was horrible! Those fish were only babies when I put them in there—which is the perfect frying pan size, by the way— and I snatched them out, one by one, like a heartless monster, before they even had a chance to grow up and live their lives. And at first it was just a few. But then they just kept biting and biting, and I couldn’t stop until they were all gon–”

     Suddenly, the kid jumped like he had just been snagged by Daddy’s Eagle Claw hook, an emotion-charged situation which happens more often than you would think, and snatched back on his Bream Buster. The pole was bent and almost doubled over, the line singing and the pole tip dancing in that delightful way that sets your heart to racing and splits your face with a grin, and the excited boy was squealing for parental backup. He had a fish. He had The Big Fish.

     A few exciting moments later—moments filled with laughter and fatherly advice and a couple of words we won’t tell Mommy about—the fish was thrashing on the faded planks of the dock. It was one of the most beautiful bluegills I had ever seen (even bigger than Old Tick, my world record holder) as it flapped around in a blue blaze of bittersweet beauty, its scales sparkling in the slanting rays of afternoon light.

     You never get over the sight of your first bluegill or redbreast. Perhaps that’s why God made them so colorful: to fire up the memory banks of little boys and girls. So they never forget. So they’ll be hooked forever. So they will always return to the ponds and waters of their youth.

     The kid was jabbering excitedly and at times incoherently in my ear. He was a better fisherman that I was, he bragged. He “ruled and Daddy drooled.” He couldn’t wait to get home and show Mommy and Grandma and take pictures. Dixie and Jim were already back at the truck eating our bag of beef jerky and cheese puffs, waiting on us to begin celebrating.

     “Daddy, am I going to be crazy about fishing like you are when I grow up?”

     “I have a feeling you will, kid. Say, did I ever tell you the story about…”