How to catch a trout near the Lower South Bear

The rising sun broke through the branches as pans banged from my father's scrounging. Hearing my yawn, he turned toward me as I stretched.

"Ready to fish, old man?" he said, grinning.

My eyelids fluttered. "What time is it?" A film of dew covered my sleeping bag.

"Six or so."

"You don't believe in sleeping in?"

"Not when there's fishing to be done."

• • •

We worked our way across the beach then through the thin oak scrub toward the stream. Carrying our bait box, my father took the lead. I yawned every few steps. Perhaps I could sleep after we'd caught and eaten our breakfast.

Then the scrub gave way to the creek's white banks, lined with cattails and a couple of willows. A red-tailed hawk glided overhead. My father stepped gingerly to the stream's edge, scanned it toward a draw then down to its confluence with the Lower South Bear.

"Looks like there's a seam just a little upstream," he said.

I nodded, and we sauntered toward it, bent cattails crackling under our steps. We stopped at the seam, and he squatted to open the bait box.

"Mayflies will get 'em every time," he said, sticking one onto his hook.

I raised an eyebrow. He'd never used mayflies when I was growing up, must have switched to them sometime during the years I'd gone to college, married and moved to another state.

"It's my bait of choice, too," I said.

"Sort of makes you believe in genetics, doesn't it?"

"Or blind luck."

"What's the difference?"

• • •

He swung his rod overhead then whipped it into the creek. It plunked against the water upstream, and he quickly mended the line. The current carried his fly past us, and then I casted.

"They say so much of who we are is decided by our parents," he said after a moment. "I mean here we are, not having gone fishing together all these years, living in completely different parts of the country, and we both use mayflies. You must have got your smarts from me."

I shook my head. "I must have let it slipped once on the phone that I'd taken to using mayflies."

The sun shined warm on our backs as we chuckled. For a moment, I was struck by how it was pure chance if we caught a trout or not. All we were doing was stacking the odds in our favor by using a mayfly and casting the way we did. All that counted was our effort, I supposed.

• • •

"Hemingway used worms, not flies, to catch trout," I said.

"Who?"

"Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway, the writer."

"I've heard of him. Did he write about trout fishing?"

I laughed. "Guess you never read him."

"Can't say I ever did. At least I don't remember reading him."

"Like how you don't re-member that I once said on the phone that mayflies are the best way to catch trout?"

• • •

Suddenly my father's line tightened, and he stripped in part of it then recast downstream.

"Your ma likes to read," he said.

"Maybe that's where I got my smarts."

He shook his head. "Nah. She doesn't fish."

Then, my wrists jerked forward, pulled by a tensing line. A brown trout latched on and - trying to escape - began bending the rod. Its dull, arrow-shaped head yanked against the hook, only deepening the incision. My father grabbed the rod's base, his firm hands fisted between mine. Our combined strengths steadied the pole as I reeled.

Chocolate brown dots covered the trout's back, and it swiveled side to side, tail fin slapping empty air, revealing a canary yellow underbelly. Its length, a good 11 inches, surprised me for a creek.

I stared into its unblinking, terror-filled eyes while holding its head high.

• • •

We hadn't brought a pail (proving my mom was the smarter), so I carried the trout back, my fingers squeezing deep into its body, muck oozing onto my hands.

At camp, my father cut off the head and scales. Slapping the trout in an iron skillet, he dusted it lightly with cornmeal and flour then held the pan over the camp stove.

Butter sizzled about our breakfast.

"Mom should have learned to fish," I said.

(originally published July 20, 2003)