On Catching Fish

It was early August, just a few weeks after my fifth birthday. My husband Luke and I sat on a rock next to my pond. Between us were two fishing rods, one pink Barbie-themed, the other Tweety-bird yellow. The yellow rod was mine and the pink one my sister’s but Luke said, “Pink is for girls and I don't want it.”

I said, “Well I hate pink!”

“But I'm a boy.”

“But it's my house.”

“But I'm the guest!”

“We are married Luke...”

“Fine. I'll take the pink one this time.”

I pulled the marriage card on him quite often. On the day of our wedding, I dressed in my finest dress-up clothes and he wore his damp swim trunks and an old button down shirt my mother used for yard work. Our sisters, who were both three years our senior, led me down the aisle and performed the ceremony. We had been married for about a month and things were going well. We both liked the same things: toy cars, tennis, fishing, soccer, football, but our favorite was fishing. 

We would often wait for hours with a lure in the water, waiting and hoping something would bite. Every few minutes we would reel in our lines, despite knowing that nothing had taken our bait. We rarely caught much, but in the event that we did, we would tell the story for weeks. Somehow the fish would end up ten times bigger and the fight ten times longer. Our parents would always listen intently as we told our obviously exaggerated tale. Although we loved the stories, what we really liked about fishing was spending time together.

April 1st: the opening day of trout season and the one day of year that, no matter what, I did not go to school. April 2005 was no exception; it was 6:00 a.m. by the time our truck turned into a parking lot by a stream. Its banks were usually frequented by many people like us but that morning we were completely alone. The air was cool and the sound of the stream swirled around my ears. We pulled our fishing rods and gear out of the back of the truck and walked down the path towards the stream. The path had been worn down over the years and was slightly muddy from the rain from the night before. We stepped onto a small steel bridge, which clanged as we walked across it. When we reached the bank of the stream, we began to set up our rods. Mine was yellow with a muted blue reel. I took my first cast and my lure plopped in the water about twenty feet away from me. I reeled it in immediately, praying something would bite. I watched my silver lure glint in the water beneath me, fishless. I repeated this for the next twenty minutes as I tried different locations and bait to try to entice my prey.

Though my attempts were unsuccessful, the cool calm of the flowing stream at my feet and the nature that surrounded me sent me into a meditative state. Suddenly I was shocked out of my trance by the sound of an incredibly nasally voice and too-large boots tramping across the bridge. He was here; Ray Ray was probably one or two years my senior, and he often came to this stream to fish with his grandfather. He wore the same stained red sweater fishing because it gave him “good luck.” He refused to wash it despite the fact the he wiped his pudgy hands, which were often covered in fish slime and blood and boogers, across his pockets on a pretty regular basis. He always brought about six different rods and an obnoxiously large red tackle box with him. Through the tranquil calm of the stream he said to me, “How’s the fishing today?” 

“Nothing yet,” I said, hoping that would end the conversation. His puckish face scrunched up into a smirk that irritated me to the very core of my being. “Well, I got some new lures that I'm pretty sure will catch something here, no problem. I went to the Bass Pro Shops store in Long Island last weekend and I got some new ones. This one from the Bill Dance tournament line and…” The lures he was using weren’t even for trout, they were for bass. Needless to say that didn’t stop him from talking about how they were going to catch the biggest fish in this “river,” which was actually a stream about fifteen feet across. While trying to ignore the constant flow of garbage coming from Ray-Ray’s mouth, I cast my lure into the water again and slowly reeled it in, paying the closest attention to the tension in my line. After about three seconds I felt a tap on the line and then the line went tight; I whipped the rod back, thereby setting the hook in the trout's mouth. Ray-Ray immediately stopped his jabbering and yelled “Fish on!!”  My father ran over and grabbed the net as I watched my medium-sized trout get scooped up below me. I had hooked the fish through its lip so I reached into the net and wriggled the hook out of its mouth. 

“See the lure you’re using is too big, that’s why you didn’t get a good hook on em’. If he were a big fish then he woulda’ been gone for sure. That’s why I use…” I wanted to leave, or rather I wanted Ray-Ray to leave. My father had already caught his limit of three fish and despite only having one, I gladly packed up and left.   Ray-Ray may have been one of the most irritating people I have ever met in my life--so much so that I still cannot go trout fishing without picturing his dirty sweatshirt and hearing his nasally voice. 

A thin layer of snow crunched under my pink snow boots as I stepped onto the ice. Behind me I pulled a big black sled filled with augers, minnows, and ice fishing rigs. My mother, father, and sister were all there as were a few of our family friends. Every winter we would go ice fishing a few weekends per month. It was always brutally cold, but we would bring hot chocolate and soup to warm us throughout the day. 

This day was particularly cold. The wind whipped against my face and chilled me to the bone but I wanted to be there. Our family friend, Church, would always bring his son, Little Church. Little Church wasn’t that little. I was ten and he was a freshman in high school and already the star of this football team. He was taller than me which, at the time, was a big deal because I was taller than most of the boys in my grade.  

We all congregated in the center of the pond and made a sort of “base camp.” Everyone then went off to drill holes in the ice. Once all the rigs were set we sat and waited. The adults sipped hot drinks and whiskey while the kids made snowmen on the ice. But not Little Church… no, he wanted to fish. The rigs we used sat over the holes in the ice, and if a fish were to bite, a flag on the top would pop up so you knew to reel in the fish. He preferred to fish with a short rod called a tip stick.

I sat next to him on an upside-down bucket while I asked him every question I could think of. 

“What's your favorite subject?”

“Umm, probably math... yeah, I like math.”

“Oh.. cool, I like gym… What's the biggest fish you’ve caught?” I kept asking him questions and he would answer. The longer we talked the colder I got, but it was worth it. Suddenly he got a fish on and his father and mine both rushed over to see. His father pulled out a disposable camera and took a few pictures before sitting down on my overturned bucket. 

“Let’s get some hot chocolate,” my dad said as he began to walk towards our base camp. I had many more questions for Little Church but I followed my father. I told myself that I had the rest of the winter to spend asking him questions, but I really only came fishing to talk to him. I walked away and I looked over my shoulder to see if Little Church would follow. As we got to the “base camp” I looked behind me again to see Little Church shuffling across the ice towards me. Now, of course, I know there is no chance that he had any sort of feelings towards me but at that age I was sure it was possible. 

It was slightly overcast, which for coastal British Columbia is considered nice weather. My father and I walked down the tarmac towards a white and blue helicopter. We were on Haida Gwaii island, which sits about 500 miles north of Vancouver. For the past eleven years my father had made this trip with my sister, but this summer he took me. Inside the helicopter we sat down and strapped ourselves in as orange earplugs were passed around the cabin. We were going to a remote fishing lodge about thirty minutes from the airport. Soon the helicopter lifted off and we tilted over the trees and towards the water. We flew adjacent to the shoreline, passing thick forests, lakes, and distant mountains until we saw a cluster of floating lodges and boats. 

We began to slow as we reached the landing pad at the end of the dock. To my left was a lodge where we were to stay. Shoreline and deep green forests sheltered us on my right and surrounded the back of the lodge. And behind me was the ocean, clear and deep. I stepped out of the helicopter and was ushered quickly inside. I unloaded my bags while my father said hello to some old friends. After unpacking I came out to the main dining area to talk to my father. I found him talking to one of the staff, who was wearing a black hat and a gray sweater and had a warm smile and kind eyes. When I walked up he shook my hand and introduced himself. “Hi I’m Bryce,” I immediately looked at my dad and laughed. 

“I know I did the same thing!” my dad said through sincere chuckles. My sister's ex- boyfriend's name is Bryce and while he was a nice guy, he was just too easy to make fun of. It's been a long running joke in my family that whenever something unfortunate or awkward happens, we call it a Bryce. The apparent hilarity of the situation overtook my father and me and we simply walked away to go get a drink without acknowledging the Canadian Bryce again. After a few seconds I realized how rude we had been and I walked over to apologize. I explained the situation to him and he looked at me and laughed. A warm laugh. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he said. 

“Well it was nice meeting you.”

“You too.”

I was ready to catch a fish. 

It was cold and rainy when we got out to the boat. As soon as our feet hit the deck, Bryce popped out of the small shack that sat on the dock. He helped us learn how to use the navigation systems on the small, fifteen-foot aluminum boat. It took him about fifteen minutes to explain a quite simple navigation system because my father is painfully helpless with technology. After the third time my father asked, “So which thing,” meaning the icon, “is the boat?” Bryce and I looked at each other in a combination of frustration and amazement. After we finally kind of got my father to figure out the GPS and went over a few safety precautions, we were ready to go.

Because my father had been there so many times, he knew the best fishing spots and immediately brought the boat to a small cove about five minutes away from the lodge. We put bait on our lines and hastily tossed them into the water. For the rest of the day we bounced around from location to location trying to just get a bite. Unfortunately we got nothing. 

The lights of the lodge came into view through the dwindling daylight. As our boat pulled closer to the docks, Bryce came out to greet us and tie up our boat. As I stepped onto the dock he offered me a hand, which I absentmindedly refused. He asked us how our fishing was and we talked briefly before another boat pulled in. As I walked down the dock, I glanced over my shoulder to see him look at me. He liked me. 

It was 6:00 a.m. when we returned to our boat. My father and I were organizing our lures and bait when Bryce came out to ask if we needed help. My father asked where to catch some halibut and a few other mundane fishing questions before realizing that he had forgotten his camera inside. While he hustled inside to find it, Bryce and I talked. It wasn’t anything special or insightful but it was pleasant. He grew up in Canada on Vancouver Island. He was twenty-three, five years my senior. Though I was just getting to know him, the conversation was as effortless as if we had known each other for years. 

When my father returned he said, “Hey, I was thinking, and I know I asked before, but which one is the boat?” This time Bryce and I both looked at each other, holding in laughter. After he explained the navigation system yet again, we took off to fish for the day. The second day was far different from the first. No more than a minute before I had my line in the water, it began to whiz out of the reel. I pulled the rod back and set the hook. It was a long fight and my muscles grew painfully tired as the fish finally neared the boat. My father reached down and netted the fish. Its scales glinted in the sun, a beautiful blue silver. I pulled the hook out of its mouth, slid my fingers into its gills and held the fish up for a picture. The sun shone bright as I smiled uncontrollably. My hands shook from excitement as I slid the fish into a well in the bow of the boat. We fished for ten hours that day, catching four more fish between us. 

When we returned, I watched Bryce again shuffle out to our boat, doing his best not to slip on the deck. This time we unloaded our fish and weighed them, all the while talking to Bryce. Another boat pulled in and he said, “See you tomorrow…” As we walked away Bryce called to me, “Hey Willa, wanna go on a boat tomorrow?”

“Sure, at lunch?” I liked him… A lot.