Fish Schtick – Gone Astray Podcast

I am not Ahab. No huge aquatic creature has chomped off my leg. I am not Hemingway or sad Santiago. I have never battled a giant marlin. My quest for a trophy fish has never been tragic or heroic. But, I have always dreamed of landing a whopper.

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I wax nostalgic for the fishing days of my youth: threading a worm on a hook, peeling sunburned skin off my arm, dipping my feet in the water and feeling minnows nibbling at my toes. Dismayed, though, as I look back, at my lack of empathy for the poor creatures that swallowed my bait. At least I ate most of those I caught and cleaned. Yes, I learned how to heartlessly gut and filet a fish, usually at night in a little shed while fireflies flashed and mosquitoes needled me like pop-up ads. Last time I slit open a fish was when I was in my twenties. I turned my head, gagged and couldn’t continue.

I remember the old men, along with my dad (who was younger than I am now), gathering at the bait shop to debate feeding habits, pond gestalt and angling strategies. Dag nabbit, swore dad’s old friend Ernie in his Walter Brennan voice, interrupting almost every comment.

My dad’s favorite fishing lure was a red and white Lazy Ike. The new versions of this 1940s high tech substitute for the live minnow are made of plastic, but you can still find a few gnawed-on wooden ones on E-Bay. I remember the Hula Popper, a chubby open-mouthed water dancer shaking what looked like a grass skirt. The Rappala reminded me of a WWII submarine in a Bogart movie as did the Tiny Torpedo. The Dardevle Spinnie was proudly endorsed by Old Scratch himself, who was embossed on it. The Uncle Josh Pork Frog, which came in a bottle of brine that leaked all over my dad’s tackle box, was a green hunk of jerky. I resisted the temptation to bite into it. It was advertised as being irresistible to big mouthed bass. I envision a California version: a slice of sashimi brined in sake, maybe accompanied by ikura, which I once knew only as salmon egg fish bait.

I took up fly fishing. I had a small collection of Woolly Buggers, the basic little black dress of fly fishing, and a few others like the Zonker, with its sleekly coiffed white hair, like that of a groomed Afghan Hound with a hook instead of legs. Its heavy under-body caused it to sink to the depths to tempt Northern Pike, a fun to catch but voracious predator with a Jurassic jawline.

I didn’t really take to ice fishing: putting on long underwear and a flap ear hat, hearing the ice cracking under my feet. Ice fishermen celebrating the “Dunk the Clunk” ritual in March, placed bets at a lakeside bar as to when the old car they placed on the ice would crash through and sink to the bottom.

The coveted catch of choice was the walleyed pike, the wily walleye, named for its pearly, inscrutable eyes. Walleyes seemingly had no soul. No doubts that one could negotiate with Putin or at least defeat me in a poker game. In Minnesota, the walleye is scary-sacred, reverently sacrificed in a bath of sizzling butter.

I never really had a real fish story, a fish shtick, a tale of snagging Nessie, or even tackling a monster muskellunge, the big bad brother of the northern pike, which could surely, like Moby did Ahab, drag me across a lake. My stories were small, about high scoring fishing frenzies, when fish, swear to God, jumped into the boat on my command,

In my many years living in California, I have made many attempts to take up a rod an reel again. I never took the bait on the Popeil (as seen on TV) Pocket Fisherman, but I did buy a yuppie fishing kit in a little briefcase from the Sharper Image. It contained both casting and fly reels and rods that you could assemble. I kept it in the trunk of my car, awaiting the right moment to bound out into some angler’s Valhalla. I took my son on a dad experience to a reservoir north of San Francisco. We sat, silently, for an hour without a bite, while I hyped the sweet days of still lakes, yodeling loons and netting my limit of crappies. Meh. He was anxious to return to the streets of San Francisco, mount his skateboard and execute a few kick turns and ollies. I went salmon fishing out of San Francisco once. Bupkis.

But I still dream of fish and fishing, of reaching the pearly gates and meeting a school of St. Peter’s Fish. I ate a plate of them once, at a restaurant on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus made a lots of St. Peter’s Fish. They didn’t hold it against me and let me pass. But to get to heaven, I had pass the ultimate test, the cold, glass-eyed inquisitor gaze of The Walleye.

“Did you ever use sonar to track me”

“No sir”

“Did you ever prepare me with a curry sauce?

“No, but once I blackened you with pepper.”

“Not the right answer. Besides you are a bit small and not very meaty. We have a catch and release policy here in heaven. I’m throwing you back.”