I’m not a fisherman, but I should be. Whatever gene makes somebody love fishing—passionately, wholeheartedly, love casting and reeling in and then doing it again, regardless of whether anything is on the end of the line—skipped a couple of generations. I’m pretty sure all the fishing passion of my grandmother, Mama Belle, was collected in a metal bucket for a few decades and then dumped headlong on my daughter’s head. Jenn will fish in the rain and in the sun. She doesn’t mind whether it’s daylight or dark. She’ll fish off the pier; she’ll fish from a slow-moving kayak; she’ll fish off the back of a bass boat. She’ll go fishing here or there. She’ll go fishing anywhere.
She and I got the kayaks out yesterday, on a stunningly gorgeous fall day, just to float and fish. Well, she fished, and I floated. I was a whole lot more successful in my leisurely wildlife sojourn, catching sight of at least one turtle slipping off a sunny log and a whole gaggle of geese noisily taking flight from a standstill, than she was. It’s a whole lot easier to be good at something that has no real purpose and requires little effort. But I did get a lot of thinking done. She probably did, too, as she cast and reeled and cast again. Yet not a single bite. Even so, like all good fisher people, she wasn’t openly disappointed. One thing’s for sure, those who fish are patient people. Like a gambler who might lose today but is certain that tomorrow will be different, fisher people know that tomorrow is another day, too, with a fresh start promised. I’m deciding that fishing is a whole lot deeper sport than people give it credit for. And it’s absolutely hereditary.
Mama Belle loved to fish, especially after she lost my Papa and pretty much lived in the old farmhouse alone. She wasn’t a permanent resident there after her family was gone, but most stunningly gorgeous afternoons, and even a few that weren’t so lovely, found her on the bank of Uncle Dean’s lake, reeling in the pond catfish from the rickety wooden pier that was missing more than a few slats. The lake was across the road from the farm, through the pear trees and down the brushy hillside, dug out of a useless hollow many years earlier. Rimmed by sky high pines, the old secluded lake was her private pleasure. I’m sure she did a lot of thinking and solved a lot of problems as she quietly studied the red-and-white bobber on the end of her cane pole. With no need for a tackle box, she just made sure she had plenty of worms in the can of dirt and some sturdy fishing line. And then she reeled them in.
Uncle Dean was a catfish farmer long before the trade became one of Mississippi’s biggest crops. He grew huge catfish, supplying the Country Squire with most of what it needed to satisfy hungry patrons of the restaurant. I remember helping him feed the catfish on the days when I was around, the water bubbling in a frantic feeding frenzy as we tossed the pellets off the end of that same rickety pier. As one of the older grandkids, I had Uncle Dean to myself most weekends we visited. That gave him plenty of time to teach me how to wink and how to snap my fingers. But he never taught me to fish.
Mama Belle didn’t even try. I’m sure she would’ve been happy to if anybody had shown the desire, but it was her solitary sport and I think she sort of liked it that way. On a few occasions, I tried to get involved by traipsing down the hill after her, but one day of watching her nail a fish to a pine tree and skin it (hopefully, after it had left this world for another) was enough to convince me to find another interest.
So, I missed the fishing gene. And so did my dad, I think, although he was a lot slower to admit it. He retained the skill at baiting a hook and removing the flailing fish, much to the delight of his first granddaughter but I don’t think he would have ever voluntarily fished by himself. At the merest suggestion from that same granddaughter, though, he would readily accompany her to the much better situated concrete pier he had built on Shoal Creek, holding an umbrella over her head, when necessary, just to revel in her enthusiasm and her company. Probably the first catfish she ever caught from that pier, Harry S Truman Whiskers Jr., was hustled home in a bucket of creek water on the floorboard of her Pop’s Ford Ranger—all so she could show off her prize to Mimi. With more water sloshing around outside the bucket than in, the fish was not long for the world and the Ranger was pretty rank for a while, but Harry made it home in time for Mimi to admire him. And just like Harry, Jenn was hooked.
Mama Belle’s adult children knew better than to discourage her fishing habit. She might not be able to remain in her beloved farmhouse alone, but she darn well could spend an afternoon fishing by herself and she had a car she could drive to get there. So, her son dutifully built a set of wooden steps with a broom handle rail to hold on to so that she could safely cross the ditch on the other side of the road leading to Uncle Dean’s lake. Because she was going to cross that ditch, one way or the other. And then, on more days than not—with a can of bait in one hand and a cane pole in the other—she would strike out across the road, up the ditch steps, and out of sight down the hill. Happy and hopeful.
Yesterday, as we returned from the kayak fish/float, with the tackle box in one hand and myriad fishing poles in the other, Jenn struck out across the wooded lot to the cabin. As Mama Belle (I mean, Jenn) climbed the steps to replace the gear, she didn’t moan the lack of success. Instead, she marveled at the way the clicker bait had behaved and felt certain that in a few days the fish would return to a more normal feeding pattern. It was just a bit too cold for them today and they were too deep. At least, that’s what the most recent fishing podcast had advised.
If there weren’t so many years separating them, with the bothersome limited lifetime thing, I have no doubt Mama Belle and her great-granddaughter would be sharing notes as they shared space on the creek side (or lake side). Fishing pole in hand, Mama Bell would no doubt be teaching her a thing or two, and maybe even tuning in to the current fishing podcast. But mostly she’d be doing the teaching. And she’d do it all with a cane pole and a red-and-white bobber.
