by Kent Coloma Thursday, August 21st, 2008  4 comments

Gone Fishin’

Like all good egomaniacal parents of the 21st Century, I strive to mold AJ in my own image. I wax philosophical about the simple beauty of a line drive into the gap, thoughtful metaphors, power chords, tanned girls in sundresses, sarcasm, Bill Murray.

I force carefully nurture an appreciation for the joys of my own childhood and the obsessions of my more mature (*cough*) self. Not that I am a despot. I have indulged his many interests without complaint. Trucks, dinosaurs, Captain Underpants. But I was taken aback when he looked at me one day with a pained expression and said, “When are you going to take me fishing?”

Like his early, All Boy, addiction to trucks, the request couldn’t have been anything but social conditioning. Ours is not an outdoorsy household. I’ve never hunted. When I camp, it’s at the beach right across from a taco stand and a liquor store. My last time fishing was with three buddies 23 years ago and the idea behind that weekend in a mountain cabin was to drink like fish, not to catch them.

Nevertheless, fishing sounded like a good idea. One of those things that fathers and sons do together to build memories. My problem, of course, was knowing not one whit about the activity, beyond being able to cast. If you people have paid any attention to this space over the last year-plus, you will know that I must be wholly prepared before indulging a new pursuit. My bookshelf and my internet history cache attest to this. In the latter, you will now find dozens of “Fishing for Complete Morons” type sites.

Okay, so I was not completely befuddled. I have landed fish. Two, in fact. 1980. Grant Line Canal. Good-sized catfish. I had vague recall of sinkers and leaders. How to set the hook when a fish bit.  I have enjoyed grilled halibut on occasion. So I started at the beginning. I bought us fishing poles, one of which I gave to AJ for his birthday.

The next step was finding a nearby spot where AJ and I could fish. My requirements were few. One, I needed to be completely sure he would catch a fish. Hours in the desert heat and the certain tantrum/frustration at not coming away with a bounty would forever end the bonding potential of fishing. I hoped of a quiet, out of the way lake or stream, so there would be nobody else around to see me bluff my way through the process. As my Great Grandpappy always said, “The only thing worse than an Epic Fail is to have scores of others witness it.” Lastly, I wanted a  body of water where we could catch and release, since AJ made it quite clear he wasn’t eating any fish he might catch. Or any fish ever.

I wanted for too much. Of the three…well…I found a place where he’d catch a fish. A trout farm just 25 minutes up the mountain. Fish in a barrel? Pretty much.

All that research I did was not especially helpful. There was no expertise needed here. We were looking at two ponds, neither of them bigger than my apartment or deeper than three feet. We could see the trout. Hundreds of them just waiting for their shot at a BB-sized hunk of stinky cheese, helpfully provided by the proprietors for $1. They’d have given us a pole for another $1, but AJ and I were armed with our fresh rods and reels. The cost of fishing was that you paid per catch (based on size), so there was no catch and release. My brain briefly entertained a point/counterpoint discussion about the “sporting” nature (or lack thereof) of our pillage, but the idea of AJ reeling one in outweighed my innate sense of fair play. Once he got a fish on the hook, however, I stopped thinking about it.

His obvious excitement at landing that first catch took a bit of a hit when he saw that fish with hooks in their mouth bleed. He was also tilted by the fact that the fish live after they’ve been caught. All of which he used as an excuse to cement his “I’m not eating fish” platform. We ended up catching three, each of which was cleaned by the employees and prepared for grilling (and eaten by those of us less considerate of the trout’s plight).

It was a memorable day. I managed not to do anything embarrassing, though after losing a couple hooks while trying to fashion a proper fisherman’s knot, I just started trying regular double (triple, quadruple) knots, which were far more effective with the doomed fish of Mt. Baldy Trout Farm.I don’t know if he caught any sort of fishing bug. He’s not mentioned another outing and if he did, I’d probably look for a different sort of experience for us which would probably involve licenses and legitimate equipment one might find outside of the “Outdoors” aisle at Target. I’m willing to foster any desire he has, but next time, he’ll have to earn it. I suppose I will, too.

Tags: Fish in a Barrel, He Caught One, Trout Farms, Unfair Advantage

Filed under Parenting, children, fishing.