A Fish Story

Let me begin by saying that despite recent photographic evidence to the contrary, I am not a fisherman. By this I mean to say that I don’t think of myself as an avid angler. I only take it up once a year...here in Maine. I can’t remember the last time I went fishing back home. It just never occurs to me. But the minute I arrive in Maine, I’m all in. It’s like a temporary obsession. For three weeks, I channel my inner Roland Martin and get after it with great enthusiasm. But it never, ever translates into Virginia.

Anyway, for reasons that remain a mystery to me, I have enjoyed tremendous fishing success in Maine, despite the very clear fact that I don’t know what I’m doing. Whenever I go out in the kayak to fish, I spend literally half of my time trying to untangle the lines, or trying to disengage those confounding triple hooks from either some tree branch, a lily pad, or...most often, some article of my clothing. I would make an excellent outtake reel for one of those fishing television shows. In addition, the thumb and forefinger of my right hand both have taken on the look and feel of raw meat from the sixteen thousand times I have accidentally hooked myself while trying to remove a hook from a fish. It is fair to say then, that describing me as a fisherman would be the equivalent of describing Donald Trump as an Intellectual. If true at all, it would be entirely by accident.

Having said all of this, I must report that yesterday at approximately 11:30 on a sunny but windy morning, the temperature hovering around 50, I stumbled upon the mother of all fishing holes. I took the kayak all the way to the south end of the lake, where the water narrows into a creek, no more than 30 feet wide. At the end of the creek, there’s a small slab of concrete which serves as a dam...

Since I was having a hard time fishing from the kayak because of the power of the wind-driven current, I decided to drag the kayak into the rocky shore and try my luck from the shore line. It was then that I noticed the very deep water on the other side of the dam, the beginnings of Quantabacook Creek, and this perfect little rock placed perfectly amongst some bushes...

At this point, I should mention my good Maine buddy, Alan Smith. He is the husband of one of Pam’s cousins up here, Lisa. We’ve known them for years. Alan actually is a fisherman. He’s forgotten more about catching fish than I will ever know. Last year when we were here, they came to Loon Landing for a visit. When he looked at my tackle box, he took on the facial expression an opera singer might get when hearing a choir of tone deaf bricklayers performing a hip hop version of Handel’s Messiah. It was like...Oh my...Dude, what is all this? It was so bad, he goes to his truck and put together what amounted to a care package...a collection of lures and big-boy fishing tackle, among them...this baby....

He told me that I could use this in places where there might be a lot of sticks and stuff below the surface. This guy floats along the top of the water and doesn’t get hung up...or something. He tutored me in the proper technique of its use. I listened intently, staring at him with partial understanding, picking up every third word or so, nodding my head solemnly.

Up until yesterday’s triumph,the entirety of my catch over the previous 9 Days had been limited to one respectable smallmouth bass, a handful of tiny ones, a yellow perch and one freshwater pike. Then, I stepped up to the rock in the above picture and cast out into the deep. Instantly a fish knocked it out of the water.i was so shocked I snapped a picture...

The second cast yielded the same result. Then a third...each fish a little bigger than the last. Over the next forty minutes I caught 9 largemouth bass, and my clumsiness allowing another five or six to wiggle off the hook. As the frequency of the haul began to slow, I glanced down at my watch and saw that was almost 1:30. Two hours had evaporated in what seemed like an instant. It was easily the most fun I have ever had with a fishing pole in my hand. But, I felt like I needed to get back to the cottage. For one thing, Paula and Ron were due to arrive any minute, and for another, I was starving to death. I kept telling myself that this next cast would be my last. On the very last cast, the fish took the bait almost gently, barely moving the water...but as soon as I pulled back to set the hook I knew that something was different. It was almost as if I had hooked a leather boot. Then suddenly he broke through the water. Good Lord, I thought...I’ve hooked Walter!

For the uninitiated, Walter was the great elusive monster bass which always eluded Henry Fonda’s character from On Golden Pond. Anyway, this fish broke the water three different times in angry defiance. When I finally brought him in I found that he was barely hooked. I took a picture, congratulated him on his valiant fight, and released him back into the best fishing hole in the history of the world. What an incredible two hours!