Gone Fishing

I spent all day yesterday fishing. 

A couple days ago I was talking to a friend and she said that she asked her boyfriend to treat her like a queen, he laughed and said that he'd take her ice fishing. 

She thought that sounded romantic until another friend told her that it was just an excuse to sit on a frozen lake and get wasted on cheap beer.
That was pretty much how my day yesterday was, except we were on the bank of a lake that wasn't frozen. 

I polished off a six pack and then lay down on the rocky bank to work on my sunburn.

There was a young guy set up near me who must have been a fish whisperer, he put his line near the water and caught fish after fish. The boyfriend went to bribe some information out of him with a slightly warm can of heineken. The man gave the boyfriend a lesson that went something like this:

Man: See, to catch a fish you have to put a worm on the hook and then put the hook in the water

The Boyfriend: Oh, I see. 

Man: Then you wait a minute, they like to strike while it's sinking or else when it's been in there awhile

The Boyfriend: Right, right

At this point I can't imagine how the boyfriend was still listening. I think that either I am terribly rude, or he is terribly polite. If it were me talking to the "all knowing fish guy" who told me that I have to fish in order to catch fish I think I would have told him to enjoy his warm beer and have been out of there. Or I may have asked questions like; "So you need a pole?" "What is that clear string you have on the pole? Is that important?" "Oh you put a worm on the hook, that makes so much more sense." The boyfriend (who is a better person than me) stayed to hear the rest. 

Man: Then you set down the pole and when they bite, you'll know.

The Boyfriend: Okay

Man: Oh, see? There's one now. 

We had been trying with similar bait, in a similar spot all day and caught nothing, he put his line in the water and, presto, like magic, another fish. I'm pretty sure he was Jesus. He spends most of his days fishing, bought a condo on the lake for ease of access and fishes because he likes to cook. He was a fascinating man.

Three hours later with the helpful advice from Jesus, The Boyfriend (finally) caught a fish. 

It was a white bass. For those of you who don't know, the white bass is a particularly hearty fish...

The Boyfriend had to muscle it onto land, it was a fighter. 

--I picked up all my fishing lingo from the boyfriend, Jesus and an old fisherman in Cascade Idaho. For those of you who don't know, when a fish is referred to as "a fighter" it means that it had a will to live. That fish did not just jump onto shore, coat itself in bread crumbs and jump into the frying pan. Another important note about "fighting fish" is that the fight gets bigger the older the story is, same is true for the size of the fish. I share this with you because it took me a few (some embarrassing) attempts to use my fish lingo correctly with other fisherpeople. Anglers, like everyone with a hobby, enjoy believing that they are special, and therefore have a secret code. Probably why people have hobbies at all, because they like having secret codes--

So back to my story, the boyfriend got it onto land, after a hearty fight.

*****WARNING, IT GETS PRETTY GRAPHIC HERE*****

He took the hook out, strung it onto the string so it couldn't get away and hit it HARD on the head with a rock. Nothing happened. (it was supposed to die) So he truck it again HARD, nothing. 

This went on for a several more attempts. The whole time he was excitedly yelling at me that there were indeed fish in the lake and that I needed to get my line back in the water to catch them.

After about nine failed attempts at killing the fish the boyfriend decided that though it was cruel to make the fish suffocate, it couldn't be any worse that repeatedly beating it about the head with a rock, so he left it on land and continued fishing. 

About an hour later, after the sun went down and I could no longer feel my fingers or toes (I was in sandals, which apparently, even though Jesus (the real one not the guy who gave fishing lessons yesterday) wore them, they are not appropriate fishing shoes, unless one wants to be laughed at) we went back to the RV.

We put the dead looking fish in some saran wrap and stuck it in the fridge. We drove to an RV park about two hours away. We played a game of Skip-Bo and once the water was hot the boyfriend was ready to clean the fish. The fish that had been out of water and in the fridge for hours.

The boyfriend put it in water and it breathed. It scared the hell out of him, and then he cut off it's head as fast as he could. We never meant to torture the fish, but obviously we underestimated it's will to live. 

The head was cut off and inside a plastic bag in the sink, I walked past it and it moved. One of the fins was rapidly going and it's eyes were moving around. 

I screamed something like "It's eyes, aaaarrrrrhghghghg! Oh my God. Why is it moving?!? And then I did the only logical thing; I stood in one place and jumped up and down while flailing my hands at the bottom of my outstretched arms. 

Then I realized the actual logical thing to do and I walked away so I didn't have to look into the moving eyes of the fish head. Once the head was wrapped up in the bag and thrown away I went back to fillet the fish.

The fish tasted good, Yum!

Today, I take on the open road for a short jaunt to Austin, 46 miles away.