Years ago, the protocol for bringing a fish into our boat was simple; lines in, tackle boxes closed, net ready. Being the smallest and generally the one most willing to lean over the side, I was responsible for netting the struggling beasts from below.
Now as any good angler knows, a wet fish in a tangled net with barbed treble hooks does not start one off in a productive frame of mind as you move into the “admire and release” phase of the sport. Small– and large-mouth bass tended to survive this tourist torture with far better success then their pickerel cousins do. Not that it happened often, but occasionally we did lose a few great ones in Salem summer lore. Fish that sacrificed so much for 90 seconds of human indulgence.
I don’t recall exactly when the greater sensitivity kicked in, but some time later on, while in my 20s, enough guilt had piled up to push me into a search of less traumatic methods for handling my catches.
My research arrived in the form of PBS television (this is before the Internet now) and a broadcast of Rod & Reel. Boy, the guys make it look easy. First they catch the best bass on every cast and in just 20 minutes too. Secondly, they bring the fish alongside their gleaming bass boats, reach down and with finger and thumb haul the darn thing right up. No nets. No tangles. No thrashing, and amazingly, no hooks in any fingers. I was sold, and immediately anxious to try this myself on the next trip up to the lake.
The first couple of catches were easy. Small pickerel who were too exhausted to put up much of a fuss. That gave me the confidence I needed to try it again and eventually make this policy after just three of four more successes. In fact, I had even gotten to the point where I could bring most of the pickerels alongside and unhook them without even taking them out of the water. Again, pickerel are notoriously poor at recovering from out-of-water experiences, so the modification was well worth the effort. It even made me feel like a better steward to the world of fresh water fish.
You’ll notice most of the best fishing pictures people have are of basses or perch, not pickerel. That’s because they don’t have time to pick up a camera and shoot images while performing CPR on a pickerel. It’s just not workable.
Now one night, I’m out there plunking along with my favorite green speckled popper. The night was ideal and the surface of the lake was like Jell-O. The perfect night after a perfect day. I landed my plug just next to a raft moored down at the end of the lake where the drop off takes a nose dive to 70-something feet.
I let the plug hit the surface with a wet slap and then gave it a twitch just after the rings had spread to their fullest range. That’s when the big bass attacked. Oh, it was great. What a splash. It leaped. I held the line firm. It dove. I brought pole tip up. It ran figure eights and all sorts of evasive patterns. I held on and kept my wits, remembering everything my Rod & Reel masters had shared.
A minute or two later, the fish seemed ready to acquiesce. I guided it to the side of the boat and looked down to see a mawthat reminded me of Roy Scheider’s classic scene in Jaws when he gets his first real glimpse of the Great White shark. It comes just before Chief Brody backs up into the cabin of the Orca and utters the phrase, “I think you’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Well, I wasn’t in as dire a situation and I felt reasonably sure I had the upper hand...until I remembered my new policy. Bare hands. No nets.
Well, I’m not a coward and I’m not one to abandon agreements. Yet, this policy seemed to have certain exceptions that were, well, implied even if they had never been laid out in writing. In other words, I didn’t think this situation called for a literal execution of protocol. Ok, I chickened out on this one. I opted for the net to save my fingers from certain stabbing.
I raised the tip of the pole skyward to keep line taught and reached down to grab the net with my free hand. The bass in turn followed its own protocol and slammed its full weight downward snapping my line and taking my great speckled lure with him into unknown fathoms.
Usually, bass surface to throw a hook, and if you keep an eye out, you can typically row over and reclaim your property. However, this fish never reappeared. He dove and took with him any chance for me to dismiss my novice error, recapture my favorite lure and get on with my career. He also ensured I’d feel guilt over having caused him pain and chronic duress now as a result of having a lip ornament dragging along under his jaw. How do we know those hooks rust away? That could be a myth.
Deflated and now ready to quit for the night, I motored home to mope. My uncle and cousin next camp over were pushing out to go trolling and I told them my story. They shook their heads in acknowledgment. Nice fish. Nobody else in the boat to witness it. Favorite lure gone. Got it.
The next day I figured I’d clear my head with a good canoe trip up and down a ways. The morning morning was bright and sunny and the water hadn’t been rippled up yet by the breeze. I passed by my relatives again during their daily troll patrol. My cousin asked me what color my lure was. Green with black speckles, I said. He bent down to the floor of their boat and held up my lure, dangling in the sun from a foot and a half of line.
Incredulous, I asked him where on the lake he found that. He said it was about eight feet from my dock this morning, floating in about five inches of water.
He tossed it into my canoe and my joy was indescribable. Hope had returned. The vacation could go on. That bass had given me another chance (I was going to say he let me off the hook). He gave me back my dignity with a simple act of forgiveness right in front of my camp.
I haven’t used a net since.