Fish Stories
I am my father's daughter--even after all these years. No offense to my mother. It's just that, when I was 8 years old, my dad's outdoor-oriented life seemed more interesting than her house-centric one. I still think of myself as a gardener, not a housekeeper, so I own a small house on a large plot of land.
A big part of our father-daughter bonding process was going fishing. A quiet man with a wry sense of humor, fishing was my dad's one obsession. Every Sunday afternoon we would go to the same bend in the same muddy river and go through the same rhythmic rituals of casting and trolling and slowly reeling the fishing line back in--and repeating it all over again and again--into the twilight hours. Then, the mosquitoes would declare victory for the night and the chubby raccoons would claim their turn to fish.
Not all was idyllic. My father considered fish to be very sensitive and emotionally unstable. At the slightest disturbance, he believed, they would all swim in a flash to another part of the river. So, for me, there were endless fishing rules: no running on the bank, no jumping up and down, no loud talking, no skipping stones, no thrashing the water with a tree branch, no whistling, no sailing improvised rafts made of sticks. Just fishing.
Not all was sociable. He didn't like to share his part of the river with other fishermen. He would hide whatever fish he had caught and tell new arrivals, "This is the worst fishing hole ever! You're wasting your time if you stick around here. I'm thinking about moving myself." (Many people fell for this.)
What he did like was to tell fishing stories, as all fishermen do. I swear he remembered every fish he ever caught as well as every fish that got away. What type they were, how big, and how hard they fought being reeled in.
My favorite fish story is more of a fish myth. I'm sure versions of it are told in all parts of this country and quite possibly all around the globe by people of different nationalities, ethnicities and languages. It is the story about the big fish, decades old, that has never been caught, but everyone claims to have seen.
When my father first told me about him, I got so excited that I almost broke several of the fishing rules at once. His name was Big Cat, a reportedly huge catfish who lived in this bend of the river. He liked to sit and sulk, and twitch his big whiskers in the muddy, quiet water by the rocks, so the story goes. People argued about how big he was--30, maybe 40 pounds--and how old he was; some said several decades. My father saw him 30 years ago and has only seen him once since. I never saw him.
Folks worried about him. Some were afraid he might get caught by someone who didn't know how special he was. Once a group of beer drinking teenage boys fired shots down into Big Cat's hangout and someone called the cops. And they came!
Time would dictate that I would turn into a brat and stop going fishing with my father. But I keep a small freshwater fish tank, and down at the bottom, busily working away is Little Big Cat in memory of the legendary one who got away.
Happy fish tales. And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
By: Mary Grayson
A big part of our father-daughter bonding process was going fishing. A quiet man with a wry sense of humor, fishing was my dad's one obsession. Every Sunday afternoon we would go to the same bend in the same muddy river and go through the same rhythmic rituals of casting and trolling and slowly reeling the fishing line back in--and repeating it all over again and again--into the twilight hours. Then, the mosquitoes would declare victory for the night and the chubby raccoons would claim their turn to fish.
Not all was idyllic. My father considered fish to be very sensitive and emotionally unstable. At the slightest disturbance, he believed, they would all swim in a flash to another part of the river. So, for me, there were endless fishing rules: no running on the bank, no jumping up and down, no loud talking, no skipping stones, no thrashing the water with a tree branch, no whistling, no sailing improvised rafts made of sticks. Just fishing.
Not all was sociable. He didn't like to share his part of the river with other fishermen. He would hide whatever fish he had caught and tell new arrivals, "This is the worst fishing hole ever! You're wasting your time if you stick around here. I'm thinking about moving myself." (Many people fell for this.)
What he did like was to tell fishing stories, as all fishermen do. I swear he remembered every fish he ever caught as well as every fish that got away. What type they were, how big, and how hard they fought being reeled in.
My favorite fish story is more of a fish myth. I'm sure versions of it are told in all parts of this country and quite possibly all around the globe by people of different nationalities, ethnicities and languages. It is the story about the big fish, decades old, that has never been caught, but everyone claims to have seen.
When my father first told me about him, I got so excited that I almost broke several of the fishing rules at once. His name was Big Cat, a reportedly huge catfish who lived in this bend of the river. He liked to sit and sulk, and twitch his big whiskers in the muddy, quiet water by the rocks, so the story goes. People argued about how big he was--30, maybe 40 pounds--and how old he was; some said several decades. My father saw him 30 years ago and has only seen him once since. I never saw him.
Folks worried about him. Some were afraid he might get caught by someone who didn't know how special he was. Once a group of beer drinking teenage boys fired shots down into Big Cat's hangout and someone called the cops. And they came!
Time would dictate that I would turn into a brat and stop going fishing with my father. But I keep a small freshwater fish tank, and down at the bottom, busily working away is Little Big Cat in memory of the legendary one who got away.
Happy fish tales. And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
By: Mary Grayson
Labels: short story
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