Fishin'

So my friend Wendy and I walk down the hill in her back yard to the river and start inspecting the fishing poles. We manage to find enough hooks, sinkers and unbroken line in the rain filled tackle box to rig up a pole. She looks at me, “Are you gonna swim?”

“Probably.”

“Will you take the big ones off the hook for me? I don’t mind the little ones, but I’m afraid the big ones are gonna fin me.”

“How do you take them off when you’re by yourself?”

“I don’t. I just drop the fish in the bucket and get another pole. Randy takes them off when he gets home.”

“Nice.” This is why I love Wendy. She makes up her own rules as she goes along, totally disregarding normalcy of any kind. Scout and I wade in the water, looking for a clean rock to sit on that is unoccupied by crawfish while Wendy rigs up her pole and casts off a few times. She is using hot dogs as bait and has the full attention of the dogs. With every cast the dogs run in the water about 3 steps as if to say, “I wanted that! Why do you keep throwing that away?” I just know she’s going to end up catching one of the dogs. I guess I’d have to take them off the hook too. After losing her bait a few times, she walks back up the bank to get a different hook. The dogs swarm in on the hot dog like a swat team. It’s gone before anyone can get to it. Wendy sighs and makes that annoyed, looking to the side face. Without a word she climbs back up the hill to the house to fetch another one. This time she brings it back in a plastic bowl with a lid. She baits her hook and the dogs swarm again. As soon as she turns her back, Scout comes in all crouching tiger style and snatches the whole bowl. Wendy grabs it before she can round the corner of the giant tree. Scout actually tugs back, putting up a fuss that someone is trying to take her treasure. Wendy puts the bowl right by her feet and casts again. She reels in a little fish about the size of my hand. “You can’t keep that. It’s too little.”

“Why not? I can clean it with a really little knife.”

“It’s not even two bites. Throw it back.”
“It’s my fish, I’m keeping it.”

“Alright.” She unhooks it and throws it back. She just likes to argue. A few minutes later she pulls out a good sized fish. She looks at me with her giant, excited eyes with her eyebrows raised.

“That one is plenty big enough. Awesome!”

“Can you come take it off the hook?” I unhook it and toss it in the bucket. Once I’m over there, I can see over the ledge into the spring.

“Hey Wendy, there’s a school of at least 6 fish in there that are about as long as my arm.”

“What kind are they?”

“I don’t know, the swimmy kind.”

“Are they fat or skinny?”

“I don’t know. What the hell constitutes a fat fish? Besides, they’re 30 feet away and under water.”

She comes over to look. She gets that big eyes look again and does a little dance. “Catfish!”

“Get on it.”

She puts a bigger hook on the line and casts right into the spring. The current is strange and instead of carrying the bait away from the ledge, it swirls it back up under it where the hook gets caught on who knows what and snaps the line. She pulls up a sinker and some mangled, stretched line. “Son of a…” She reloads and casts again. The line hangs, she tugs, it snaps. Meanwhile the giant fish are just hanging out, staring at us, probably having a chuckle at our expense. “Why don’t you walk down the bank a little so you’re not casting over the edge of the ledge?” She gives me a “thank you captain obvious” kind of look and inches her way down the bank. She casts again. Even though she is past the ledge, the bait drifts back against the current and under the ledge. This is when Wendy starts to lose her shit. The cussing starts quietly, under her breath as she gently tugs the line. It’s like the line and her patience are one in the same. As the line gets thinner I back up a few steps and hunker down for the snap. Snap! Boiiiiing! Wendy’s eyes become wild and frantic. She beats the fishing pole against the water, measuring out her words to correlate with each slap.

“Now! No! One! Gets! A! #$%ing! Hotdog! Are you #$%ing Happy NOW?!?!” her words echo down the river and the woman sun bathing on the dock next door lifts her head and lets out a chuckle. Wendy gives the spring one last glare of death. She turns around, leans the pole against the tree, then looks up, completely normal.

“Wanna swim now?”

“Yep.”