Friday, September 5, 2008

How to Catch a Large Trout

So, you'd like to catch a trout, eh?  In case you're thinking you should stop here first and read what I have to say, let me warn you, I'm not an expert fisherman, in fact, I know little of the sport.  I do, however, have some fishing experience, which I'll be sharing this evening with you.

For me fishing goes like this.  I arrive at the pier.  Of course, I'm with my sons who love to fish because this is something that would never occur to me to do.  The first thing that happens is I look around and see all the happy fisherpeople, but I, alone, am sad.  I am feeling sorry for the fish.  I look at their big round eyes, they seem helpless and disoriented, like a fish out of water. Well, they are out of water!  But, my kids won't be satisfied unless I join in on the fun, so here I am.  I get my hook and affix a worm or some bait facsimile.  Out into the water it goes, ker-plunk!  

At this point, a few feet away from my hook, the fish gather and hold a brief meeting.  "Its him again," the leader says "stay clear of that hook."   The huddle disbands, my hook remains in place supported by a red and white floater.  Time passes.  I'm watching 5 year olds reel in fish, grandmas and grandpas get some too.  Oh, and there, my son John just got one.  

After about an hour of this punishing, humiliating experience, my feelings towards the fish begins to change.  The sympathy and compassion I originally felt is being slowly transformed into - no not into-  yes, into anger!  I am being ridiculed by an aquatic vertebrate. How dare they!  I am now developing a sincere urge to catch one of the beasts, to  irreversibly hook one of the gilled non-tetrapodal chordates, pull it out of the water, fling it in to the air and smack its slimy, gilled body on the deck, round eye or no round eye!!!

I begin to fish in earnest.  This continues for some time without success.  Those around me all seem to be catching something, the whole scene starting to look like slow-motion popcorn going off...except for my limp, lifeless kernel of a hook.  

Yes, the hook against which the fish conspired sits there suspended in the water still bearing the faux worm. I, am about to go into my third and final phase of the outing. It's time to go.  I'm bored.  No revenge catch occurred...Now, trying to save face.  How to make a graceful exit without anyone noticing I'm leaving empty-handed???  The thought of the people lining the dock smiling at me as I slowly walk down the pier towards my car, head down in shame is painful. And thinking of all those fish, laughing underwater at me, a dejected Charlie Brown.
  
I can't garden either, but I'll save that for another posting. 


 


2 comments:

Aunt said...

Hey John, is that Salmon you're cooking for dinner tonight for your son, Johnny, and yourself? Or is it the large trout he caught yesterday?

Aunt

John Paredes said...

I paid the store to give it to me.