The Last Fish – Part 4

(Last of a 4-part series)

My great love affair ended in tears – as most do – but my heart was full.

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All alone, I sat atop the world, above the tree line, among the Sierra’s highest peaks. At my feet lay a handful of lakes so filled with trout that when they rose en masse to sip mosquitoes, it looked and sounded like hail hitting the water.

I caught dozens – shrieking with joy at each hook-up. I kept one – an 11-inch beauty that lay in a bed of vermicelli upon my small brass stove.

It was noon, October 6, 1984 as I wrote in my journal: “This is the greatest day of my life.”

No place on Earth had ever so captivated me, and I vowed to return some day. Thirty-two years later I finally did, leading a group of Boy Scouts. Burdened with heavy packs, we struggled for two days before finally reaching 11,600-foot Black Rock Pass, and looked on the other side.

At our feet lay a handful of lakes so full of trout, I assured them, that every one of you will catch your fill.

I could barely keep the boys from stampeding down.

No one caught a trout, despite my fervent guidance about lures and casting.

“Here,” I finally said, grabbing a boy’s rod. I turned the reel handle and felt the lure come alive in the water. My eyes closed as I imagined how a water bug that lived in those lakes might act. Just under the surface. Moving slightly up, pausing to dip, stopping with a twitch, rising again…

“Got him!” I yelled and handed back the boy’s bouncing rod.

I tried to explain the technique to another boy, but after three attempts grabbed his rod, too.

“Got him!” and handed back another bouncing rod.

Grabbed another.

“Got him!”

It was so easy – for someone who had learned to be fish and prey. But, how do you teach, in a moment’s lesson, what you learned in a lifetime of moments?

After seven fish, I called the boys together for training in how to humanely kill and prepare the fish for dinner. I asked my 16-year-old son Casey to grab a fist-size rock.

“Hold the fish gently or he will panic and flip away,” I said, picking one up and showing it around. He lay quietly in my palm with his brilliant orange belly just touching my fingertips. Gold and red spots sprinkled his moss green flanks like a constellation of planets. I stroked his soft rounded head as I would a puppy. His eyes looked down. He wanted to go home.

“The rock, please.”

I placed his silver-green head on another rock.

“You must be swift and sure,” I said, smashing down hard.

The boys gasped as eyeballs, gill pieces, tongue parts and blood exploded outward. I suspect that an ISIS beheading is more clean.

After each fish was taken care of and strung on a willow branch, I handed them to the boys for the cook pot.

“Dad, can I talk with you in private?” my son said softly.

He led me off into the woods where we could be alone. He was shaking. His head hung down. Tears dropped into the dust at his feet, making little puffs. His voice trembled.

“I’m sorry, dad, but something happened inside me when you killed that fish. He was so beautiful and you…”

Casey started sobbing.

“I’m sorry, dad, I don’t mean to be this way. It’s just that…”

Suddenly, it wasn’t Casey standing in front of me, but my younger brother Joe at age 12 – holding his first fish in open hands and crying like Casey.

“No tears,” I said, grabbing the little perch and ripping the hook out. “Fish don’t have nerves in their mouths. They don’t feel.”

Just like I was taught.

Joe toughened up after that. I showed him how to play football. He was tough enough to win a college scholarship.

“I am sorry, dad.”

Something bright and white exploded within me on that mountain in that moment, and a flood of images passed before my eyes…

Of my first fish, hanging from a hook and struggling as people cheered.

Of thousands upon thousands of fish I subsequently hooked and exulted over as they fought frantically…for life.

Of the bat rays I took Casey and his brother to see at Monterey Aquarium. They swam up to us and nuzzled our hands. We petted their soft, velvet heads as if they were puppies. I thought of all the puppies swimming around with my hooks in their mouths and guts. Beware of getting to know your prey, I thought. It’s hard to hurt a pal.

Of the Japanese war ace who exulted at killing so many of his hated enemy, but at war’s end vowed never to kill again, even a mosquito. I…was beginning to understand.

Of all the wild places and wild creatures I would never have seen – let alone fallen in love with – if not for the sacrifice of all those fish. Can I backdate my gratitude?

Casey wiped his tears, thanked me for listening and left me to wander alone in the woods.

Wasn’t it in the woods that fishing became my first and most passionate love? I took a deep, deep chestful of breath and, as I exhaled, said goodbye.

Now all I had to do was walk down the mountain and tell my good friend, Craig, who just got back from catching roosterfish in Mexico and would want to trade fishing stories. He’s the most passionate, crazed fisherman I ever met, except for me. Fishing bonded us. Made us friends.

I could barely explain it to myself.

How was I going to tell Craig?

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