I caught my first fish of 2020 by accident.
The day started like any other. My alarm rang at 8, and I pressed snooze twice before finally lumbering out of bed. These days there’s a lot of lumbering going around, and I’m no exception.
I moseyed into the kitchen and put on some coffee.
I usually work Tuesdays, but this day I wanted to go fishing. It was sunny and bright outside, too nice to work. And besides, I could’ve used another day without hearing the c-word.
I’d gone fishing about four or five other times this year and hadn’t caught a thing. I may have gotten a total of three bites. And it’s not for lack of trying. A few days earlier — Easter afternoon — I’d gone to First Lake and got caught in whiteout snow conditions. I would’ve stayed, but the fish weren’t biting and the tips of my fingers were taking increasingly longer to recover from the numbing pain.
Accompanying my reluctance to work on Tuesday was a reminder that I didn’t have to. Who was going to yell at me? Sometimes I forget I’m in charge.
So I slid into my water boots, threw a couple of muffins and a roll into a brown bag, grabbed a water bottle and my can of worms out of the refrigerator, got my coffee, and drove out to Fresno.
I had a spot picked out just east of the spillway.
I must’ve been half asleep when I got there because, instead of crossing onto my spot clean, I got sucked into mud up past my knees. I hurried back to shore, drenched, trying to shake it off. I hadn’t even started and I already had a bootful — two to be exact — of muck.
But I was determined. This time, the temperatures weren’t going to stand in my way. It was beautiful outside.
Something else nearly did, though.
The bed of my pickup holds many things: food and candy wrappers, pieces of wood, a sleeping bag, stray .22 bullets, a plastic snow sled my son uses for everything except its intended purpose, crumpled-up grocery bags, half-empty water jugs, peanuts, a container half filled with hardened raisins, Chex mix, a damp roll of toilet paper, paper towels (also damp), and some tools in case I get stranded (I own an 18-year-old Ford).
One thing it does not hold is an extra pair of socks. And right then, I really needed socks.
I opened the shell hatch on my pickup and looked anyway, despite knowing there were none. I was hoping, in my advancing age, I’d actually forgotten something. Unfortunately, my steel-trap memory was still solid. There were no socks in my pickup. It’s something I had been meaning to put in there, but never got around to it. And I don’t know why. This isn’t the first time I’ve soaked my socks. I did the same thing just two weeks ago, when I waded too far into First Lake. That time I hung my socks on a stick, hoping the fire would work its magic. I slipped on my hiking boots and went out for a couple casts, and by the time I came back, I had dried my socks to a crisp.
These socks got a little too close to the flames. RIP.
So there I was, wet feet and sockless — again.
I could just go without socks, I thought.
Except my boots were filled with grainy, wet mud. I tried shaking out as much as I could, but they would need a good rinsing — and drying.
So I scanned through the junk in my pickup, hoping there was something I could use to salvage my day. It wouldn’t be any of the damp paper towels, or the raisins.
My gaze stopped at the crumpled bundle of grocery bags. I kept them there so I could turn them in at Walmart to be recycled.
I wiped my feet with the already wet paper towels, dried them with the part that was almost dry, wrapped two grocery bags on each foot, tied them around my ankles, and put my boots back on.
For the next three hours, I fished about seven different places around the reservoir, before and after the dam.
I eventually ended up about 20 yards from where I started, except this time I was on the other side of the river. I could see two young men posted in exactly the spot I tried to get to a few hours before. They were obviously smarter than me.
I had two rods. I cast the lighter one, armed with a live worm, in what seemed to be the deeper area and staked it on a holder, then cast the other one, armed with colorful crankbait.
No matter how many false alarms you get, you never want to assume it’s not a fish. Maybe that’s the hope that keeps me coming back, despite my abysmal fishing record.
At one point, the line on the lighter rod begin to slowly bend beyond what I believed was the effect of the current. I grabbed the rod, and slowly tugged. I felt something heavy and sluggish. My first thought was I’d snagged a loose branch that was being taken by the current.
Then something weird happened. The branch pulled away, but not in the direction of the current. It pulled toward the opposite shore. It certainly wasn’t a typical fish tug — snappy and hard. It was heavy but slothful.
I reeled slowly, worried about breaking my line.
I did this for about a minute — pull slowly, reel slowly. I was still unsure of what I had, but hopeful it was a fish. I needed to break my slump.
I eventually tugged, dragged, and reeled to the point that I brought on shore an 18-inch sucker fish. And it seemed I’d caught it by accident. The fish had no intention of eating my worm. In fact, my worm was still on the hook, which was lodged well into the fish’s dorsal fin.
It looked like the fish was swimming along, not mindful of my bait when it hooked itself. What a way to hook the first fish of the season.
Paul Dragu is the editor of The Havre Herald. Write to Paul at [email protected]
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