A Magical Night

I recently read an article that said that the best fishing stories emphasize “we,” not “I.” I take that comment to mean that the best fishing stories involve several people, even if only one person is holding the pole.

My favorite fishing memory unfolded on a July evening in 1986, the only night that I can remember when there was three generations of our family in the fishing boat. Sitting in the stern was my father-in-law, an excellent fisherman and the person whom I most enjoyed fishing with. In the center seat was my nine-year-old son, who for some reason asked to join us that night. I sat in the bow.

I remember the moment when we were ready to call it a night. The sun was setting, and we were out of minnows. I didn’t hold out much hope of catching anything further, as the minnow on my line was clearly dead.

Something odd about that night was that I’d finished reading a book that afternoon on the Zen of fishing. One of the chapters focused on the various ways that fishermen manage, through mental mistakes, to lose big fish. I’d caught a few two-pound trout in “Grandpa’s lake” over several summers, but nothing all that big. And given that the lake had been stocked with trout for only a few years, no one thought the trout in the lake had achieved any great size.

If it was odd that I’d finished reading that book on very day, it is also odd and a bit of a mystery that I’ve never been able to track the book down. The library where I took the book out had no record of it, and all my efforts in subsequent years to find the book have failed.

I do, however, remember several of the author’s insights. He pointed out that the longer a fisherman has a big fish on the line, the more likely he or she is to do something incredibly stupid. As ten minutes, fifteen minutes, then twenty minutes spent fighting a fish pass, a fisherman’s mind struggles to maintain concentration on the fish. The author mentioned a sudden desire to tell a joke to relieve the tension or, in hearing a plane flying overhead, to look up. In that moment—no, in those seconds—the fish will be lost, not because the fish breaks the line but because the fisherman has broken her or his connection with the fish.

I wasn’t even sure I believed the author, but that night, that last cast, with that last minnow, the author’s wisdom proved true. Line suddenly peeled off my reel, and something bigger than any fish I’d ever hooked had taken my line to the bottom of the lake. The fish stayed down in the depths for thirty minutes, and yes, I remember fighting the urge to tell a joke or to glance at the fishermen in other boats who were coming over to watch.

My father-in-law assumed the role of captain. He pulled up the anchor so that the fish could take the boat where it wanted, and the fish did just that. He also explained to his grandson how I’d have to move about in the boat, from front to back, back to front, or side to side at a moment’s notice. We all had to be ready for whatever the fish demanded of us. We were a team.

After thirty minutes, I heard my father-in-law say, “When he surfaces, we’ll have only one chance to net him.” And then, as if the fish heard, he came up from the depths and my father-in-law leaned over and netted the seven-and-a-half pound brown trout, the biggest trout ever caught in the lake to that point.

I remember slumping down in the seat as fishermen in other boats cheered. In the fading light, we motored to Grandpa’s cabin, and soon the pier was crowded with others who wanted to see the fish. I will never forget my wife’s words as she looked from the fish to me. “You look sad.” She was right; I did feel sad. I mumbled something like, “The three of us will never have an experience like that again.”

I’ve never been sure why or how I knew that, but in one sense, it was the truth. That winter, my father-in-law, one of the best friends I’ve ever had, died of a heart attack. My son and I never went fishing with Grandpa again. But there is another truth, and that is that when my son and I reminisce about that magical night, we are back in that boat, and Grandpa is forever there, leaning over to net the fish the three of us caught.