In recent years I’ve discovered something about myself: I really like fishing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a skilled fisherman by any stretch of the imagination. I honestly don’t know much about poles or tackle, or whether to fish upstream or downwind, or how to properly attach one of those spinny things. I can tell few, if any, of those classic, over-embellished fishing stories so common amongst avid fisherman; I just haven’t caught many big fish. But that doesn’t dampen the experience for me. I’m quite content to simply cast a worm, hook and bobber into the water and wait for a bite. It’s just…addictive. So when we arrived at our friends’ cabin on the Missouri river, fishing was on my mind, and, I was certain, would be a highlight of the trip there.
Another interesting factor of our time by the river: we invited a small army of children to stay with us for a week. Four of our good friends’ children came to live at the cabin while their parents were away at a conference. So with Noah and Natalie, we had a total of six kids: three boys, three girls. And while the girls weren’t wild about the thought of fishing, the boys couldn’t wait to go. Interestingly enough, after a couple days of six kids, Abigail thought it would be a great idea too.
So I packed up and got ready to fish with the three boys: Noah, Elijah, and Gabe. We loaded up our little paddle boat with three poles, a net, a tackle box, and a carton of nightcrawlers. After a considerable amount of maneuvering and me insisting that the boys focus on the task at hand, we got into the boat without falling into the water (barely), and the four of us slowly paddled upstream to a calm, bay-like area with a thickly vegetated sandbar that separated the bay from the river. We docked on the sandbar and prepared our fishing poles.
Immediately upon kneeling down by the poles to bait them, I realized that I hadn’t planned very well. I had three poles, but only one had a hook on it. I quickly put a worm on the first hook and sent Noah to the water’s edge with it. One down, two to go. So far so good.
The second went as well as it could have. I tied a hook on Gabe’s pole with only a little trouble, and then felt good enough about how things were progressing to let Gabe put the worm on. Gabe wasn’t a fan of poking the worm, but after some coaxing and dropping the worm in the sand about five times, I brought Gabe to the shoreline, a reasonably safe distance from Noah, and helped him cast his sand-encrusted worm into the water.
Satisfied with that effort, I turned around. “Alright Elijah, let’s get your pole ready…” and then I froze.
Elijah was gone.
I was bewildered at how quickly he had disappeared. In a mix of annoyance and panic I whirled around, scanning first the water, then the sandbar for him. At last I heard a rustle, and Elijah burst out from behind some brush, bent over, and running in zig zags with his arms out straight in front of him.
I was relieved, but my annoyance lingered. “Elijah, what are you doing?” I asked, a little sharply.
Elijah stopped and looked up at me, “There was a grasshopper.”
“Well, let’s get your pole ready so you can fish,” I said. And so we walked back over to the tackle box and I began to work on the line while Elijah looked woefully back to the tall grass into which the grasshopper had fled. I hurriedly tied a hook to Elijah’s line. By that time, gnats had discovered us and were flying into my eyes and ears and biting my neck, so I kept dropping what I was doing to slap at them. Once I got the hook on I trimmed the line too close to the knot and it pulled through, so I had to retie it, all while unsuccessfully fending off gnats. Then Noah started to yell:
“Daddy, I’m tangled up! Help me!”
I looked back to Noah with what appeared to be a cat’s cradle strung between his hands and the fishing reel. He was attempting to fix the problem by reeling furiously.
“Stop, Noah! Just stop!” I yelled, and ran over to help him detangle his mess. Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as it looked, but it still took several minutes to get everything straightened out. All the while, the gnats persisted in their villainy. Finally I turned back to finish with Elijah.
Elijah was back in the brush. He was stalking another grasshopper like a cat.
“Elijah, c’mon buddy,” I said exasperatedly. He looked up at me, then came back over to the pole with a deep sigh. I softened my approach, a little embarrassed by my impatience. “How about you split a nightcrawler and put it on your own hook, ok?” I asked. He nodded, so I helped him pick a worm, tear a piece off, and get it on his hook. We went to the water and cast in his line.
I took a deep breath; three out of three.
I didn’t get much of a reprieve, however. Almost as soon as Elijah’s line was in the water, Noah was yelling that he was stuck again. His line was wrapped in unbelievable knots around the end of his pole, and this time it was just as bad as it looked. Fortunately his line had a swivel attached, which in turn was attached to a piece of line with the hook, so I was able to detach the hook and then work on the knots in the line without the complications of a metal barb.
As I was detangling the last of Noah’s knots, Gabe started yelling, “I’m caught! It’s stuck!” Somehow he had caught his hook on our paddle boat and was torquing on his pole like he was pulling a salmon out of the Atlantic.
“Just hold on, Gabe. I’ll be there in a minute,” I tried to reassure him. Gabe’s plea for help just increased in volume and pitch. I turned to Noah, “Buddy can you go help him while I finish here.” Noah trotted over to Gabe and I turned back to pull the last knot out of Noah’s line, slapping at gnats as I worked. Finally I got it. Then I looked for the hook. I couldn’t find where I put it. I searched the ground, running my hand lightly over the area where I was sure I had put it. Where is it? It was JUST here! Gabe started wailing. Now I was really getting frustrated. My forehead began to bead with sweat. I swept my hand across the ground hard and felt a jab. I pulled my hand back with the hook sticking into my palm. In the background of my consciousness, I heard Noah joined Gabe’s complaint that he couldn’t unhook from the boat. Then all I heard was the buzzing of a gnat that flew into my right ear.
I stood up and slapped at my ear until the gnat was either knocked all the way out or all the way in. I stared out at the lake, trying to find something to burn with my eyes. I regained my composure, and let out a long whoosh of breath through my lips. I was ok. Everything was ok.
I looked over to where Gabe and Noah had been struggling with Gabe’s line.
They were gone.
Fortunately, this time they hadn’t gone far. They were back away from the lake’s edge, huddled over something in the grass. Suddenly Gabe popped up and whirled around, a huge smile on his face. His hands were cupped genially around the body of a large, dark-green grasshopper. Over by the water’s edge, Elijah threw down his pole and ran over to Gabe, exclaiming that he had found one first. Noah was grinning admirably at Gabe’s catch.
All three boys ran over to show me their prize. “Well, well, well,” I said ruefully, “These worms haven’t worked out so well; maybe we can use him as bait.” Gabe’s smile evaporated, and I quickly retreated. “I’m kidding, Gabe.” I knelt down to take a look. “He’s a big one, isn’t he.” Gabe’s smile returned.
I decided it was a good time for us to pack up. We had been fishing for a good fifteen minutes without a nibble, and the gnats weren’t going away anytime soon. We loaded our gear back into the paddle boat and set out to go home. Noah lamented on the way back that he hadn’t had the opportunity to catch a grasshopper yet. I wondered if the boys felt as fond about catching grasshoppers as I do about fishing. Maybe more so, after this trip.
We traveled downstream on the return trip, so we were back to our cabin quickly. As we pulled up to the landing, I assigned each boy something to unload. “Elijah you take the tackle box. Gabe you get the worms. Then Noah, you get out, and I’ll hand you the fishing poles.” Noah objected to being the last one out, but I quickly overruled him. The first two boys got out, then I turned around to get the fishing poles, and I noticed the worms still at the bottom of the back of the boat. I shook my head and chuckled. Ah Gabe, you’re probably off to find another little green friend. “Hold on Noah,” I said, and then turned back and reached out across the boat, stretching and groaning a little. The worm carton slid further back into some sludge at the bottom of the boat. I reached just a little further and managed to snag the carton. “Ok Noah. I’m gonna hand you the poles and then these worms,” I said, turning around and wiping the mud from the container.
I wasn’t surprised by what I saw when I looked up.
Noah was gone.
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