SUMMER SCHOOL
Last spring a student approached me with an unusual request. One course short of his graduation requirement, Brian wanted to do an independent study in nature writing. Specifically, he wanted to write about fishing. What made his request unusual is he owned no fishing tackle, and he did not know how to fish.
In June we laid out a course of study: reading, writing, and field work. For his first assignment he read Hemingway's short story, "Big Two-Hearted River," Norman MacLean's short novel, A River Runs Through It, and an essay by Wendell Berry comparing the two. Since Hemingway's hero, Nick Adams, was fishing grasshoppers for trout, we decided to begin our field work baitfishing. Before hitting the water, however, we had an important decision to make: Would we keep fish?
In Fly-Fishing for Sharks author Richard Louv reported a visit with Hemingway's son Patrick. During the visit Patrick described catch and release fishing as "torturing animals for your amusement." Brian and I decided we would eat fish.
On the way to Silver Lake, we discussed the reading assignment and the finer points of presenting worms to panfish. Once on the water, I did not fish hard; I was having too much fun handling the canoe while Brian hauled in palm-sized bluegills and sunfish, but I did catch one legal bass which I quietly slipped back into the water, declaring him "a bit too small."
We took a traditional mess of panfish home.
The next week, returning to Silver Lake, we discussed John Hersey's Blues. That work gave me a chance to demonstrate my skill at a kind of criticism known as reader-response: I told my story of catching a bluefish off the coast of Maine. I caught it the summer the media was following George Bush senior's prolonged run of bad luck fishing for blues from his cigarette boat. After two weeks, he finally caught a one. I caught mine--much bigger than his--after only two days bobbing about in a twelve-foot Boston Whaler.
That evening Brian fished poppers for bass. He got a few. They blasted from the lily-pads, hooking themselves as they shattered the surface calm. Once again, I mostly handled the canoe and enjoyed putting Brian onto fish. Back home, I taught him how to fillet.
A few days later, I got the urge to fish myself. I took the canoe, a couple rods, and slipped off alone. Few others were on the lake, when I arrived, and I was pleased to share it with a couple herons, some mallards, and what may have been a black duck. I fished the way I like to fish, sticking close to shore, moving from structure to cover, working slowly but never lingering in any particular place. About halfway across the lake, I had a soft hit on a yellow Mister Twister as I retrieved it close to a tangle of brush sticking from the water. When several casts produced nothing, I figured a big bluegill was hanging out in the shadows, so I put down my heavier bass rod, picked up an ultra-light I had rigged for worms, and tossed one into the hole.
Instantly, the rod bent double, the drag complained, and I knew I didn't have a bluegill. I didn't think I had a chance, and when I saw the fish roll at the surface, I was sure I was going to lose it. I don't know how long I played it. Alone on the lake, feeling the thoughtless power of the fish, watching it slash back and forth, I lost all sense not only of time but of everything that was not me or fish. In close, it made a final run under the canoe, but the line held, and the rod turned it back to the surface where I got a thumb in its jaw and lifted it from the water.
As my heart rate stabilized, I removed the hook and measured it--20 inches, four or five pounds, of largemouth, a monster fish for northern waters. Holding the fish before me, my first impulse was to release it. How dare I appropriate for myself such a wonder? But Patrick Hemingway's words returned to me. In catching it on light tackle I had already laid claim to its life. I put it on a stringer and lowered it into the water.
It rolled once, drove hard against the stringer, broke it, and disappeared into deep water. My sudden laughter, as crazy as any loons, echoed over the lake. Who would believe my story?
The next time out, I took Brian to the Genesee, gave him a Mister Twister, showed him how to retrieve it, and pointed to a deep hole hiding a sunken log. A week before a friend had lost a large smallmouth there. Brian didn't lose it. In fact, he took two from the hole, one sixteen inches, the other fifteen and a half. The fillets are gone, but we have pictures to prove it.
Brian did write during this study. He wrote a lot and he wrote well, but I think he knew how to do that before we started.
Copyrighted 2001. All rights reserved.