Just me and a fish.

     

     Over the years of my childhood we lived near several different lakes through several different rotations around the sun. Which, if you’re from rural Minnesota, means a whole lot of things. It means getting lost in a neighbor's corn field (which if you’re unfamiliar will grow taller then you are even as an adult), it means tire swings, tree climbing, BB Guns (for me not all), frog catching, camping out, dusty roads, long bicycle rides to your friends, sneaking out to meet and have a first kiss in that same cornfield, and chief among them fishing. 

Fishing

     If you talk to anyone who did a lot of this growing up or if you are someone who did a lot of this you will likely remember the first fish you caught by yourself. No one else is around but you, the lake, some birds, and the fish. I remember mine. It was a small mouth bass, and although he was big enough to keep I just looked him in the eye’s and let him go.  I can still remember the smell of the lake that day, the feel of the dock boards I was sitting on, the exhilaration of reeling him in, the tension of the rod, the fight he gave, and the final feel of him leaving my dirty hands and swimming away.

I think, like the Grinch, my heart grew 3 times as big when I held him up to the house just in case someone was watching.

     It was one of those Saturday mornings when no one was on the lake. The water barely moved as I sat there casting my line into it. Red Wing blackbirds were calling from the reeds and the only music was nature’s own choir singing a soft morning waltz.  I can’t remember which cast it was the first or the fifteenth, but I do remember when it hit. I wasn’t expecting it at all just another in a series of casts. ‘How far can I make it this time?’ 

     The dock stuck out maybe six feet, and was near a bunch of dead logs which if you were clever and good enough you wouldn't get your lure stuck.  I didn’t have a lot of lures so I was conservative how I cast into it. You only have to loose your favorite to learn that, but like a lot of youngen's I tended to temp fate.  I was getting closer and closer to the logs and tangles when he hit. You see a buddy of mine had cast so close his line bounced off one of the logs without getting stuck and I wanted to do that.

     ‘Plop’ into the water and I reeled, twitched, let it fall, reeled, twitched, let it fall over and over. When he finally hit and I set the hook I tried hard to remember everything I’d been taught on ‘how to’ and started reeling him in. He fought hard and pulled my line out. I let it go and tried to steer him away from the logs. He gave a little and I reeled my heart pumping so hard and my little fists sweating and reeling. I gave him some more line and he pulled it hard and away. We played like this for awhile till finally he tired and I pulled him onto the dock. Once I took the hook out, and held him in my sweat and fish slimy hands it all came to me what I had just done. It was then that the moment embedded itself into my soul.  Proud isn’t a word that is big enough for how that feels and with no one but the sky watching I looked him in the eye’s and let him go.

     If we do go somewhere when we die, and our death is not the final end of things. This is one of the places and things I would like to experience again.

     He jumped out of the water and the ripples he caused were a musical cannon. Gathering momentum and melody with each consecutive ring. Over and over ring upon ring instrument upon instrument there is music in a moment alone with nature and I shared one.

It was just me and a fish.

Homework: What is a first experience that you would like to have but haven't yet? Just for a second think about how you would make it happen?