Don't Order the Fish

Don’t Order the Fish

It was the sweltering summer of 1970. We were starry-eyed newlyweds, a couple deeply in love, and we were embarking on our very first fishing expedition as Mr. and Mrs. As our car approached the waterfront at the end of a narrow, dusty, sun-baked two-track trail, a slight breeze shifted across the hood.

It carried the heavy, pungent smell of decaying lake weeds and damp fungus bordering the sloped, muddy banks. Tied securely to a splintered wooden dock was a dented, twelve-foot galvanized metal craft. This would be our floating carriage for the afternoon, powered only by a set of heavy, weathered oak oars that rested unevenly across the gunwales.

From the cavernous trunk of our sea-green convertible, I hauled out two fiberglass fishing poles, a rusted metal tackle box, and a pair of aqua-blue, canvas-covered life preserver cushions. The vinyl of the cushions was scorching hot from the sun. As I carried the heavy load of gear toward the boat, I called back over my shoulder, asking Deb, my new wife, to bring the plastic cottage cheese container tucked away in the melting ice of our Styrofoam cooler.

She jogged over, her sandals crunching on the gravel, and squinted at the tub. “What on earth is with the cottage cheese? I didn't pack that.”

“It’s not dairy, honey,” I laughed, stepping onto the swaying dock. “It’s worms.”

Deb instantly dropped the container as if it had turned into a coal. The plastic lid popped clean off upon impact, allowing a dozen thick, slimy nightcrawlers to find immediate refuge. They frantically separated the blades of tall grass in their desperate bid for escape. She let out a piercing scream that echoed across the water, freezing mid-stride. “The worms are getting away! Oh my god, I can’t move! There’s one crawling straight onto my shoe!”

As I walked back up the bank, watching her swap from foot to foot in absolute terror, I seriously questioned if this entire fishing trip was a good idea. I knelt in the dirt, picked up the overturned bait container, and painstakingly recovered most of the escaping crawlers, their cold skin slick against my fingers.

We finally made our precarious way to the metal boat. I held her hand tightly, helping her take a rigid seat at the bow where an aqua cushion and a fishing pole were placed. I set my own cushion and pole on the middle bench seat where the heavy iron oarlocks were pinned.

As I looked back at Deb, she sat as perfectly still as a marble statue, her knuckles white on the aluminum side. “Do you honestly think this boat is safe?” she asked, her voice trembling. “It looks so . . .”

“Old? Antique?” I assured her with a confident grin. “As long as the hull doesn’t take on water, we’re perfectly fine, sweetheart.”

As we positioned ourselves on the stiff canvas preservers, I gripped the frayed, slimy rope tied to the dock piling. A sudden doubt crept into my mind, and I silently questioned myself: I wonder just how many years it’s been since this metal tub has actually touched the water?

I untied the knot, unlocked the oars from their resting position, and began to row out into the open water. With each aggressive slap of those heavy wooden sticks against the surface, crystal droplets of lake water danced about our heads in the bright sunlight. The only thing missing from our romantic cruise was a live serenade.

Approximately fifty yards from the shoreline, I let down the heavy iron anchor, watching the rope whiz out until it hit the soft bottom, hoping this would be our lucky spot. I pinched a fat, wriggling crawler from the blue and white plastic container and methodically threaded the sharp metal onto the hook. Deb violently turned her face away, wrinkling her nose. “How can you be so utterly insensitive? That poor creature has got to be in agony.”

I thought to myself, Be very careful with your words now, boy. I forced a sweet tone and said, “Honey. Sweetheart. Just think of it as putting a strand of spaghetti onto a fork. It’s simple. Now you try it.”

A fiberglass pole and a swinging line were instantly shoved directly into my face. “You do it! You bait the hook! I’ll catch the fish!”

I sighed, wrapped a fat worm tightly around Deb’s brass hook, and watched her turn away in sheer disgust a second time. I was the first to cast a line, the weighted sinker hitting the water with a loud plop. It took a few awkward tries for her to cast and release her nylon line without crossing mine, but eventually, both lines settled. We sat in the quiet, watching a loving duet of identical red-and-white plastic bobbers floating intimately together atop the clear, motionless lake—a perfect visual simile of our newfound togetherness.

Then, without warning, Deb’s bobber did a gentle, unexpected curtsy in the water. It sent a ring of widening ripples across the surface, followed immediately by an ecstatic, violent plunge completely below the surface.

“Jerk the line! Set the hook right now!” I shouted, abandoning my own pole. “Get that fish into the boat, and I promise I’ll take you out to the finest restaurant in town for dinner!” It was a rather odd, desperate proposition to make mid-lake, but would it be enough to turn a day of slimy fishing into a candlelight dinner for two?

Deb jerked the rod upward with all her might, forcing the plastic bobber to surface with a splash, causing the fiberglass pole to take a deep, dramatic bow. Something heavy was definitely fighting on her line.

But something far worse was currently happening at her feet. She screamed at the top of her lungs, slamming her knees together. “There’s water gushing into the boat! Oh my god, start rowing to the shore right now!”

I looked down and instantly knew what the problem was. In her wild excitement to hook the fish, her tennis shoe had kicked the rubber drain plug completely out of its seat in the bottom of the hull. Lake water was rushing inward like a flowing artesian well, splashing against our ankles. I rose from my seat, balancing on the swaying frame. “Let me come back there to the bow and fix it, Deb.”

“No! Don't move! You'll flip us!” she yelled, her face completely pale. Instead of panicking further, she remarkably improvised her emergency medical fix by inserting her right index finger deep into the open drain hole to slow down the terrifying flow of incoming water.

Fortunately, we didn’t have very far to go to reach the safety of the shore. Deb kept screaming bloody murder. I kept rowing with furious, back-straining strokes. The sharp, grating sound of metal scraping hard against a stone bottom suddenly echoed from the bow of the boat. We had finally touched the solid shoreline.

Deb’s finger still resembled a tight cork jammed into an exploding champagne bottle, plugging the leak. She looked thoroughly exhausted, but immensely relieved. I desperately wanted to burst out laughing at the sight, but a protective martial instinct whispered, You’d better not make a sound.

Deb slowly, painfully extracted her pruned finger from the wet drain area and pointed it directly at my chest. “Don’t you say a single, solitary word.”

After I carefully helped her clamber out of the wet boat, she sat down heavily on the grassy bank with absolutely zero intention of helping me haul the wet fishing gear back to the convertible. She aggressively rubbed her swollen finger, trying to bring some physical relief to the deep redness and soreness it had endured as a human hull plug.

I noticed our two fishing lines were still trailing out into the water. I reeled mine in first, the mechanical hum of the reel quiet, and placed the hook safely beside the tackle box. When I started to retrieve her line, the fiberglass pole instantly bent with a heavy, stubborn resistance. I knew right there was something still fighting on her hook. Maybe this near-disaster of a day wouldn’t be a total financial loss.

As I rapidly reeled in the line, my mind anticipated a prized game catch—perhaps a beautiful northern pike or a massive largemouth bass.

Not so. As the line broke the surface, it revealed an ugly, whiskered, slick-skinned black-faced bullhead from the catfish family. Sorry, God, I thought, looking down at the creature, but he really is a hideous beast.

It was blatantly obvious that this particular fellow, whom I immediately nicknamed Charlie, was not coming home to our kitchen. Though visually repulsive, he still deserved a proper name. I could see the glint of the gold hook buried deep down into Charlie’s fleshy throat; bullheads have an annoying, biological tendency to swallow the hook completely. I retrieved my long needle-nosed pliers from the tackle box and carefully extracted the metal.

Deb stood up, her shadow falling over me. “I’m going back to sit in the car. I can’t watch you rip his poor throat out.”

“His name is Charlie, Deb. Look at his whiskers.”

“I don’t care if his name is Prince Charles,” she snapped, turning on her heel. “I’ll see you at the car.”

It was crystal clear that Deb had seen more than enough of this swamp... and of the sport of fishing. I finished unhooking Charlie, slid him gently back into the water, and packed up the gear. I walked back up the dusty path to the car and tossed the poles into the trunk. When I finally climbed into the passenger seat and sat down right next to her on the vinyl, she looked over, her expression guarded. “What did you end up doing with that awful fish?”

“I let him go back to his family, honey. I’m incredibly sorry this day didn’t go smoothly. But you know what? We are still absolutely going out for that nice dinner tonight.”

Deb took my hand, her grip tightening, and a genuine, beautiful smile finally broke across her face. “Just promise me one thing, sweetheart.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t order the fish.”