Communing With Fish

A mostly true essay by

Bruce David Tracy

This also explains why I golf and fish, even though I am not good at either one, during every spare moment I can find. Sometimes I feel that I work simply to make enough money to hit the road in search of the perfect par three or the fabled fish, Joe Trout. Speaking of Joe, I did find him one beautiful summer evening in Canada, but sadly my incompetence as a fisherman led to his untimely death. Still, he worked his magic on my soul so his death was not completely in vain.

I trekked on that particular Canadian voyage during my summer break from school. Being a teacher affords me the three summer months to pursue golf and fish adventures which stimulate my spirit and bring me back to mind numbing levels of peace. If I were a Buddhist, I would swear that Nirvana was located on a par three pond filled with bass.

Each summer I would set out with my sister, her husband, and my three nephews in search of new waters and freshly cut greens. Sadly I have found that my Top Flights find the water more easily than the Royal Coachman that hangs from my fly fishing vest. Still, even a blind squirrel can find a nut when he falls out of a tree and lands on one and one fine evening, I too found my nut on the shore of Jackson Lake in the Grand Teton National Park.

Just before sunset, I set off with my oldest nephew and my brother in law in search of a quality fishing spot. We had neglected to take into account that giant grizzly bears lived in that part of God's great earth, but jumbo trout were calling and we hadn't seen enough gills at that point of the trip to let something as annoying as good old common sense get in the way.

We hiked through the forest for twenty minutes or so until we had found a spot worthy of our fishing affections. We separated so that we had sufficient space to feel isolated and yet not out of ear shot in case a bear should take a liking to our bait. After casting a few Panther Martins into the quickly darkening water (the sun was leaving us to deal with our lack of both common sense and bear repellent), I started to get into the mind numbing zone that makes me love fishing so much. After ten casts without a bite, I am sufficiently convinced that there are no fish in the lake that I am currently fishing and that I am more likely to catch a cold than anything with fins. This is the point where my mind starts to clear and I relive past pleasant memories of former girlfriends or a perfect drive on a long par four.

Just as my mind was creeping into the zone, something happened. My rod yanked in my hand and my destiny with Joe was sealed. I quickly realized that neither seaweed nor an old boot swims away from you and I decided that I must be on to something big.

"Hey guys, I got me a cow here!" I called to my fishing buddies.

My eight-year-old nephew, Dan, knew that cows don’t swim in Canada so he didn’t bother to look in my direction. My brother in law, Bill, the only man to have as many false alarms as me, didn’t even flinch as he recast into the lake. Even after Joe jumped creating a splash that rivaled a fat kid at summer camp practicing cannon balls, my fishing partners still pleaded ignorant to the great event unfolding before me. After all, true fishermen can't let on that they are interested in what is happening on the end of someone else's hook. Given the right set of circumstances and a different wind pattern, that fish could have been theirs.

Finally Joe made his way to the shore and my fishing cohorts meandered over to acknowledge my catch.

"Not bad, might even be a pound," my brother in law informed me as he tried to get my three and a half pound behemoth into his net. Once the fish was landed, he hurried off to try to catch Joe's brother or not quite so good looking but equally well fed sister.

I was left alone to remove the hook from Joe's gut and as I looked into his eyes, we communed. His voice seemed to be booming in my head, "I have the answers you seek, oh fisherman, but seeing that you have no skill and that I am about to die in your hands, you will never know the truths that I bring." With that, he breathed his last and when my lure was finally free, I tossed him back in the lake to be food for something more prevalent on the food chain. For a second or two, I had the fleeting hope that he would swim away, but soon he flipped belly up and floated, with his secrets intact, to the deeper waters.