My Fishing Line

Despite popular belief, fishing is not entirely about fish. Fishing is about the experience or in my case, the perceived experience. Some days I can catch about as many fish while casting in my own back yard. I can live with that, as long as I don’t lose too many lures.
State records being removed from my expectations, I took a day off and headed for the lake. In Suwanee I made a stop at one of the local bait shops to get my annual fishing license and an essential chocolate cupcake.
A drive-by census of my regular fishing spots ended me up below Kentucky Dam with the snaggers and the bucket packers. The Fish and Wildlife man was standing at the top of the steps leading down to the water so I asked him as I approached if he was checking fishing licenses. I had just invested $15 dollars for my orange card, the least he could have done was look at it.
But, “No,” he said, “I’m doing a survey on krill, I may want to talk to you when you come back up.” I said “Okay,” and continued down the steps.
“Krill?” I thought, looking at my 6 pound test line, “Isn’t that something that whales eat?”
I’d heard the name and probably seen the fish but I was among seasoned fisherman and this was not the time or the place to show your ignorance. I figured I’d look it up when I got home and then I could pretend I knew it all along.
I made my way down the long stairway to the waterline where it was more-or-less elbow-to-elbow fishing. I have a real problem with #8 treble hooks whizzing by my ear so I moved some seventy-five feet down stream from the nearest snagger and laid claim to a small group of semi-flat-topped rocks.
I flipped a brand new green and orange spinner out into the swirling waters and almost immediately the line back lashed on the real. The lure sank to the bottom as I untangled the mess. This was the death sentence for the lure as I snapped off the line.
I sat down on the least pointed rock I could find, not recently painted by water birds, and replaced the line on the real.
While everyone else fished and the wildlife man did his survey, I inventoried my tackle box, and found that all of last years’ empty bait packages were still there. The white jigs I had bought in September were now orange having rusted in the bottom of the box. They would have been handy right then, but I tied on yet another brand new spinner bait and continued casting for half an hour or so, with barely a bite.
Following a cast, I pulled up the slack and felt stiff resistance at the other end. It was heavy, I estimated probably 500 pounds of trophy limestone. I was about to select something from my list of disgruntled outbursts, when it began to swim off with my lure.
This fish showed no excitement, but had every indication of something large, as if I’d hooked a pick-up truck slowly backing out of my driveway. I held my ground as it headed back upstream toward the snaggers.
The seldom heard drag brake released a length of line making that little noise that tells everyone else, “Hey, look at this!” I glanced up to see at least a couple of other guys who had stopped fishing to watch the action. I assumed my best “American Sportsman” stance as I took in some line imagining wild surface action and slow motion camera shots. It was my show now and there would be no commercial breaks.
But the fish changed it’s mind and went deep again and straight out in front of me. Again the drag buzzed as he took the line from the reel. I felt a little like the dog who chases cars; now that I got one, what am I going to do with it?
Again, I took up the line, and again he came closer to the surface. It occurred to me at that point that the lure was only a 1/16 ounce spinner, and I marveled at the stresses that it was under…
Instantly the line went slack and then gave a slight tug. I raised the rod up quickly and reeled to maintain the hook set, when out of the water popped this four inch stripper dangling from the end of my two inch spinner bate. If ever I wanted a fish to fall off the hook, this was it. I thought about the snaggers and turned to block their view of “Nemo” as I removed the hooks and dropped the fish back into the water.
I made a couple more casts and decided to leave. The Fish and Wildlife man had already left so I was relieved that my vast knowledge of krill would not be put to the test.
I opted to forgo the stairway some hundred feet away and headed straight up the steep rip-rap. It’s always farther up than it is down so I was really out of breath when I got to the top, where a lady in the parking lot asked me, “Did you have any luck?”
“Yes ma’am, I did”, I gasped. “I got all of the way…back up here… without having a heart attack.”
“Well, that’s something!”, she laughed. “At least your not bragging about some fish that got away.” She was obviously a fisherman’s wife.
Later, sitting on the porch bench at the bait shop, I turned up a cold bottle of grape soda while out-of-town anglers fueled up their bass boats and rearranged their coolers. These guys were seriously into losing lures, I thought, as I flipped through a complimentary sport fishing guide, covertly searching for krill.

A Fish Story

Waving a fly swatter about, with a cigarette dancing on her lip, Hazel waded into another tale. She was more likely to conjure up the memoirs of witches or the details of some local haunting than to just tell what happened last week. Many a tale was told to make me walk faster at night past a rustle in a cornfield or a shadow by an old house. Of course, I knew the stories were subject to some exaggeration, but I never let that slow me down.
In 1975 she was an older lady, but by no means elderly, drawing upon her days as a young girl in the late 1930’s. The conversation had apparently wandered close to one of her favorite fields of memory, and she was ready to jump the fence.
In 1937 the Ohio River left it’s banks and went window-shopping on Broadway in downtown Paducah. The Cumberland was not to be outdone. Homes and farms all along the river were swallowed up in a cold swirling ruin. High water in the bottomland was slow to go down, but eventually the floodwaters receded, and when they did, a legend rose out of the water.
A local farmer noticed that in one of many low spots where the waters had pooled, what appeared to be the roof of a brown bus was beginning to emerge. It was not uncommon to find all manner of debris washed up after a flood but this bus had a two-foot long fin sticking out of it. The farmer and his neighbor made attempts to row out to the object but were turned back as it began to churn the waters.
As the water slowly dropped, it revealed a creature some forty feet long and about eight feet across, easily the biggest catfish anyone had ever seen. It had eyes as big as a softball and black as the night. The mouth was wide enough to swallow a man and was the marvel of young boys who prodded with sticks only to see it bite them off. On one occasion a man standing by its tail was knocked flat when the fish flinched.
Word travels fast in small towns and before long people were coming from miles around to see the spectacle. The farmer, being unable thus far to work the field, found himself busy entertaining and visiting with the many onlookers. He erected long tables for the food that many of his neighbors were bringing. He basked in his newfound notoriety. People joked with him saying,” You ought to sell tickets!“ But he refused saying that he rarely had visitors and was content to enjoy it.
Eventually word reached an eastern city from which two men came offering to purchase the fish for a large sum of money. Again he refused.
As the days passed the fish slowly died, as did the novelty along with it. Soon all the visitors were gone and it was nearing time to break the field for planting. But now he had a problem. In as much as a small dead fish has a big odor, a huge dead fish is absolutely intolerable, and his neighbors let him know it. The two men from the big city were no longer interested in the purchase and furthermore refused the fish as a gift.
In the end, the farmer and his unfortunate sons had to saw up the carcass and haul the fish off in chunks.
I must have been grinning in obvious disbelief when Hazel leaned back and said.” It’s the truth!” She pointed her finger at my nose and frowned. “If you don’t believe me you can go ask…” and reeled off several names of people I knew. I think she and I both knew I wasn’t going to ask any of them to bear witness to any such fish story.
So I took it for what it was: A tall tale conjured up in the warmth of a potbelly stove. I enjoyed the yarn as well as her corn dodgers and apple turnovers.
Years later, I relayed the story to another more elderly lady, and noticed that she kept nodding as if to verify the “facts” as I told them. When I finished, she sipped her coffee and smiled knowingly.
“Well, I never did get to go see it”, she said, as she pushed up her glasses. “But I know several who did. They say it was quite a sight.”