A small stream flowed through
Camp Gold. Dammed and widened into a small pond under the shade of tall trees,
it was kept richly stocked with trout exclusively for young fishermen and
women. Dad and I took part in an organized father-daughter fishing activity one
afternoon. A good sport, Dad patiently followed the leader’s directions to
guide me through the complicated task of putting a bait worm on my hook — a
“night crawler” pulled from a cardboard cup of soil and worms we’d picked up at
the camp store where we’d checked out my orange-colored fishing pole. I
wrinkled my nose, but didn’t let go when the long, pink worm wiggled and
contorted each time I stabbed it with the small barbed fishhook. And I had to
stab it a few times to get its long body to stay on the hook. When I’d
finished, the poor thing looked like I’d tied it into a big, ugly, painful
knot.
Next, Dad showed me how to get
the bait and hook out into the water. The trick was to gently cast it into the
pond without entangling my line with any of the dozens of other lines being
tossed about by the other father-daughter pairs encircling the pond.
Inexperienced young fisherwomen sent their lines flying this way and that, and
lines crisscrossed first to the left, then to the right, sometimes three and
four at a time. It was a bit like a circular firing squad, the result being
entangled lines galore.
Miraculously, fish managed to get
caught despite the chaos! I yelped each time there was a tug on my line.
Usually, it had just caught or been caught by another young angler. But once,
the tug came from an actual fish!
Dad, seeing the tip of my pole
dip dangerously toward the water, grabbed it halfway up and held it steady.
“Reel it in,” he said. There was excitement in his voice, though not nearly as
much as there was in mine.
“What do I do? What do I do?” I
squealed! I gripped the handle of the pole with my left hand and the handle of
the spinner in my right. I was concentrating so hard on the fish and the pole
that time seemed to stop and the other people and their noise seemed to
disappear.
“Don’t rush now. Very slowly,
turn the handle this way,” Dad said, his bushy black eyebrows pulled together
in concentration. Still steadying the pole for me, he put his large, free hand
over mine and together we turned the handle and began to pull in my fish. After
a few turns, he removed his hand, but held it close by at the ready.
When my fish began to emerge
from the water, Dad helped me swing the pole to the side and bring the
sparkling and wiggling trout to dry land beside us. He grabbed the line, and
the fish flopped and thrashed on the ground. “Take it. Take it,” I said,
pushing the pole towards my father.
“No,” he answered. “It’s your
fish. You get to finish this.” His dark eyes were serious and his deep voice modulated
to keep me calm.
Together, we held the wet
slippery animal, while Dad worked out the hook.
I don’t remember how we
transported my catch to the cleaning area or anything about that messy process,
but I remember taking the cleaned fish to the back door of the mess hall. I
remember the kitchen staff accepted my prize, wrapped it in white butcher paper,
labeled the package with my name, and placed it in an oversized refrigerator.
The next morning, at breakfast
in the huge, rustic mess hall, my name was called on the loudspeaker. Dad and I
stood and waved from our wooden benches, and a white-aproned waiter wound his
way across the room to deliver to me my own cooked catch. Head and tail still
attached, its round black bead of an eye staring directly at me, my fish
greeted me. Dad showed me how to pull the head, tail, and backbone out with one
smooth movement.
“I’ve never had fish for
breakfast,” I laughed, my fork poised.
I offered everyone in the family
a bite of my prize catch, but I ate most of the moist white meat and much of
its crunchy, salty skin all by myself.
