500 words on fishing

I have a fishing license; it’s the second one of my life. Two fishing licenses in 31 years and not a single fish. That might be because I spent the first 10 years of life fishing with a screw instead of a fish hook. I don’t know why we used a screw but I’m sure it was a safety measure of some sort. I imagine it was far safer for the fishes than for me and my brothers. After all, you can still shove a rusty screw into someone’s eye or up their nose. The worst a screw would ever do to a fish is giving it a nice bump on its head. “Who left this screw just hanging here? C’mon other fish, someone is likely to get hurt. When you are finished with your screws, put them away.”

We used to go crabbing with an old chicken bone tied to a string. This was actually a more common practice but probably as effective as the screw. I remember my brother once falling off a pier and getting yelled at for it. I am sure there are details to that story I’m ignoring, but I’ve romanticized it because, in my head, we caught Ted. Ted is the only thing I’ve ever caught fishing.

This summer, I went with Ted’s family to the mountains of Oregon. Our cabin was on the shore of one of the clearest lakes in Oregon. There were fish in that lake. We saw them. After buying an Oregon fishing license and ignoring the health and safety of the kids by stringing real hooks on their fishing poles, we went fishing. The hooks didn’t make a difference. From the dock, from the muddy banks, from the rocks near the reservoir outlet: there were no fish biting. Another fish genocide averted.

A few months later, I succumbed to the pressure of friends and went on my first lobster dive. Six months a year in California, SCUBA divers can “hunt” for spiny lobster. In almost 10 years, I’ve never gone on a hunt because I don’t care that much for lobster. I really don’t care for the fees and equipment required to hunt lobsters. After a $100 investment and a $100 boat trip, I might have been lucky enough to score some lobster for $80 per pound. At $80 per pound, I can stay dry and warm and have someone buy, clean, cook, and serve me my lobster… and do all the dishes after! (Two dives later, I never even saw a lobster.)

Fishing and I have a tortured past. I want to like fishing but it’s just one of those more traditional pastimes I never warmed to. In fairness, I was 27 before I ever understood what “First Down” meant in football. (In high school, I just thought it was a good time for the marching band to rip out a few exciting notes.) But I’ll keep trying and probably no fish will get hurt. Just a screw.