Fish Story

Having lived in Maine all my life so far, I
have naturally indulged in the pleasures of the
outdoors, like black flies and mosquitoes. I don't
hunt, but I do fish. You may have noticed that no
one is against the slaughter of innocent fish for
sport, which is because fish do not evoke sympathy.
This is because they have fish eyes, look at you
with a fish face and smell fishy. While they cannot
help this, being fish, these expressions entered the
language as such because these qualities are so
obviously undesirable. This makes fishing one of
the few recreational activities involving man and
beast which is not frowned upon.

I would not call myself an avid fisherman, because I
do not always make it out on the first day of fishing
season. I also have only been fishing in Canada
once, maybe six or seven times if you count stocked
ponds. The lack of advocacy of fish rights has
resulted in a reel shortage (har har), so if you're into
catching fish (as opposed to sitting in a boat
drinking beer with pals, with an unbaited hook in
the water so you can say you're "fishing"), you will
have to find a stocked pond.

Stocked pond fishing is like shooting the
proverbial fish in a glass of proverbial water. They
are hand-fed daily, so they have no reason to suspect
people who happen to be carrying eight-foot poles
of meaning them any harm. You can stand on the
bank, toss in a line, and watch as the fish race
toward it, the lucky winner getting hooked. Again,
this is why there is little sympathy among
conservationists for fish. They just aren't very
bright (the fish, not the conservationists. I like
conservationists. They are the ones who are
stocking ponds!).

Fishing trips to lakes tend to be less
successful in terms of caught fish, although they are
markedly more interesting if you have a canoe. Not
because you have better luck in a canoe, but you
will be so busy trying to stay afloat amid the wind
and power-boat wakes that you will not mind.

Dock Fisherman: "How'd it go out there?"

Canoe Fisherman: "Great! Never Better!"

Dock Fisherman: "Caught a lot of fish, huh?"

Canoe Fisherman: "Fish? No, but all my clothes
are still dry, and I didn't lose anything in the lake!
It was great."

Think I'm exaggerating? Once I went on a
trip to Moosehead , late in the season (mid-May).
When my brother and I arrived, it had just stopped
drizzling, so we immediately put the canoe in the
water. There seemed to be a great many people
taking boats out of the water, but somehow this did
not alarm us. We were here to fish, after all. The
water was so dark it looked black, which was
strange for early afternoon, but we were not
alarmed. We had come to fish.

After paddling out for a while, we looked
around. Moosehead is a very large lake, and we
could see for what seemed like miles in all
directions. No one else at all was on the lake. Now
we were alarmed. As the sky darkened and the
wind came up, my brother actually said, "Well, as
long as we're out here, we may as well toss in a
line." I knew at once he had been possessed by the
spirit of an avid fisherman who had probably
drowned on a day like this.

The line sank, and sank, and sank, and never
did hit bottom. The black water was over seventy
feet deep. I was very alarmed. Soon he had a bite
and successfully reeled in what we later discovered
was called a "sculpin." It was a prehistoric-looking
creature from the depths, with a thick, squared head
and a body that seemed to be all tail. But it was
probably a fish, and thus it was sufficient to appease
the avid fisherman's ghost, which then left my
brother's body. We paddled for our lives, fighting
four-foot swells and heavy winds.

Arriving on shore just after it began to rain,
we packed up the canoe and headed for home in a
thunderstorm. It is not because things like this
happen to me that I am not an avid fisherman, but
because it bothers me when they happen. An avid
fisherman would have called the above a successful
day. After all, we caught a sculpin.