trout fishing

Does anyone notice that trout fishing literature always has a back story about healing? I'm thinking of stories like "Trout Fishing in America", "A River Runs Through It", "A Big Two-Hearted River" - if someone never read a Nick Adams story they still could not help but get the message that Nick is trout fishing in Northern Michigan to heal his physical and emotional war wounds. "In a River Runs Through It" standing in the river while arcing a fly line into a far, deep, pool, hoping to get a rise is the metaphor for peace and healing.

The literature tells the story magnetically.

When I was 11 our family took a fishing vacation to Northern Wisconsin. In the beginning, my step-father and step-uncle took a boat (with only an electric trolling motor) and fished a chain of small lakes. My step-sister and I fished from the dock.

After a couple of days the owner of the fishing camp took us to a strong running river. The older men fished with jigs in deep pools and caught several beautiful walleye.

I walked up stream by myself to a place that had noisy rapids spilling into a pool created by a sharp bend in the river. The far bank was deeply undercut. The water splashed gray and white as it knifed through the rocks and then turned black as it dumped into the pool and flattened out smooth as ice.

Not knowing what to do, I instinctively stood at the head of the pool and tossed the small Mepps Spinner I had on into the strongest part of the current. I let it float then sink where the current slowed down to an unnoticeable pace. Finally I started reeling it back in.

The fish that grabbed the lure meant it. The strike almost pulled the rod from my hands. Remember I'd been catching pan fish and bullheads. The line went tight as a bow string and then shot across the stream and slipped under the far bank. I gave some line back to the fish but kept the tension. Suddenly the fish exploded out of the water, getting almost as high as I was tall. The fish didn't flop or twist or flip. It seemed to hang in the air and look me directly in the eyes. Then it fell back into the water.

Now it swam in circles. First one way and then the other. After a few loops around the stream the fish rocketed out of the water again but this time it twisted, turned straight up and down and then snapped his head sideways. The spinner came flying back at me and hit me in the chest. It stuck to my shirt pocket.

I sat down and realized I was shaking all over. But I also realized that I was fishing, not drowning worms from some dock. For a long time I listened and watched the water. The sound was like chants and the water made beautiful mandelas that hypnotized and then disappeared forever.The weather was turning cold and blustery. But I didn't notice; I was warm and at a peace I didn't want to leave. I looked for the fish for quite awhile, tried my first technique, then tried different spinners - getting bigger and bigger all the time. I never saw the fish again. I didn't get another bit until the very last cast.

As we left I had the feeling I owned that river, or more accurately, the river owned me. The weather was lousy. I caught one small panfish. And I had been basically left alone for a week while everyone else had adventures. But that time on that river was one of the best times of my life.

When we got home I went upstairs to my mother's bedroom where she lay dying from breast cancer and told her the story. For the first time I wondered what kind of fish it was. I described it in detail to mom. It was silver with a white belly. It had bright red slashes on it's sides from gills to tail. It was sleek with a pointed nose and a big dorsal fin.

Mom said it probably was a rainbow trout.So I decided that is what it was.

We sat together for a long time that night; not talking just sitting together. I replayed that fish over and over in my mind.