I’ve got more reader than fisherman in me too. When I think about going fishing as a kid or taking my own kids when they were young, what comes to mind is not the thrill of seeing the bobber dance then go under, or how the size of a sunny always surprised after the fight it gave. Instead, I remember how my father’s mother would spit on the worm before I casted because, she said, channel cat couldn’t resist it. Or witnessing my own kids trying to make sense of what can be in the water and how to speak to it, like the time at the pond out on the farm when one of their lines caught the interest of a giant snapping turtle. Their uncle helped them pull it out of the pond and prehistory.
A wonderful recounting! As if told by John McPhee.
I’ve got more reader than fisherman in me too. When I think about going fishing as a kid or taking my own kids when they were young, what comes to mind is not the thrill of seeing the bobber dance then go under, or how the size of a sunny always surprised after the fight it gave. Instead, I remember how my father’s mother would spit on the worm before I casted because, she said, channel cat couldn’t resist it. Or witnessing my own kids trying to make sense of what can be in the water and how to speak to it, like the time at the pond out on the farm when one of their lines caught the interest of a giant snapping turtle. Their uncle helped them pull it out of the pond and prehistory.