“So…can I come fishing with you guys some time?”
I may have been entering dangerous territory with this question.
My then-boyfriend (now husband), Jimbo, had started accompanying two of his outdoorsy friends, The Guys, on fishing excursions. The Guys were renting a house on an all-sports lake northwest of town, and the landlord allowed them, and by unwritten association, their friends, access to the watery paradise and all its fishing-boating-skiing-swimming charms. Sometimes they all squeezed into the rustic John boat; other times they were granted access to the ancient pontoon.
Always, they brought back fish stories.
And it sounded incredible.
Mine was not the taboo inquiry of the sheltered-but-curious Deer Hunter’s Widow asking to accompany her spouse to the proverbial Man Cave that is Deer Camp. I’d hung out with Jimbo and The Guys plenty of times. I’d drank with them. I’d laughed at their off-color jokes (and offered up a few of my own). I’d been a fourth in Euchre tournaments and proved a worthy opponent.
I was, pretty much, one of them—in as many ways as I could be.
Still, I was asking to join in on what had, previously, been strictly a ritual of male bonding.
I was happy—and a bit surprised—when Jimbo said yes.
The first order of business: Get some fishing gear.
Now I hadn’t been fishing in a couple decades. Not since the forays of early childhood when I’d accompany my Dad to the pond at the local park, where he’d casually cast for the runty sunfish that swam in the shallow, weedy waters. Back then, I’d been more interested in feeding the fish than catching them, tossing crackers and mini-marshmallows (those fish loved marshmallows!) into the water’s edge and delighting at the feeding frenzy that ensued.
Now, I was more serious.
To purchase my first pole and reels, Jimbo and I traveled to the local Big Box store and headed back to the fishing aisle of the sporting goods section. The plethora of fishing paraphernalia was sort of overwhelming—and, quite frankly, a little psychedelic. There were things that swam, things that dove, things that rattled or floated or wiggled or spun… All of it in any color and/or color combination that one could imagine. Words like “Rapala,” “Booyah,” “Shad,” and “Spinner” leapt out at me like exclamations in some exotic foreign language.
It was beautiful!
Jimbo steered me away from the lures (before I got lured in any further—HA!) and guided me to the rack of fishing poles. He told me that, for my first pole, I should probably look into getting a combo with a closed-face reel (“Because the line won’t tangle as easily as it could with an open-faced”).
He said once I got more experienced I could advance to open-faced.
I picked out a mid-priced combo in a brand I remembered The Guys speak of in a favorable light, took Jimbo’s recommendations on pound test and hook size, and, as an afterthought, grabbed a “lucky bobber.”
I practiced casting (overhead and side).
I learned how to bait a hook (and not be grossed out by live crawlers).
I was ready to fish!
My first time, actually managed to snag a few panfish. None of them were keepers, mind you, but I was still pretty proud of myself. And The Guys gave me props like one would a toddler taking its first solo steps.
Then Jimbo decided to take me to a secret fishing hole behind his dad’s house. To get there, we followed the course of a shallow stream that meandered through the woods, ran under the highway bridge, and finally emptied into a shallow, kidney-shaped pond before continuing its southern flow toward a larger river. Jimbo set me up near the northern mouth of where the stream flowed into the pond and left to fish the other end.
I hadn’t been there five minutes when my Lucky Bobber went down and went down hard! Whatever was on felt huge. Of course, I knew from experience that even the smallest Bluegill can fight hard enough to make you think you’ve hooked a monster. Then when you get it up on shore (or in the boat) you see it’s a tiny thing that would’t produce enough meat to fill a fish stick.
This is what I thought I had.
After all, I was newbie to the world of fishing. And newbies don’t catch The Big Ones.
Besides, I was set up for panfish: Small hook, single worm, bobber. Use a panfish rig, get panfish. Right?
I didn’t realize just how wrong I was until I got that fish on shore.
What emerged from that pond was not a Bluegill, but the biggest, ugliest catfish I’d seen outside of pictures in fishing magazines! It was at least 36 inches long, probably more, with skin so dark it looked almost black. It’s nickel-sized eyes bugled menacingly up at me, and its whiskers squirmed around its gaping mouth like venomous tentacles. The impossible part of my mind screamed “snake!” and “eel”—creatures that can’t even be found outside of tropical swamps (certainly not in the Thumb of Michigan)—and even “monster!” After all, it DID look like something from a cheaply-made horror flick.
Hey… It was creepy!
And it had swallowed the hook.
I yelped and Jimbo came running, ready to heroically save the day and karate kick whatever was threatening my honor.
I’m not sure what he was expecting to see, but it definitely wasn’t the aquatic monstrosity that was violently thrashing on the bank of the pond, still firmly attached to my rig.
“That’s the biggest catfish I’ve ever seen!” Jimbo exclaimed, half in horror, half in awe.
“I thought I had a bluegill,” I said. “It fought like a bluegill.”
We just stared down at the thing, assessing the situation. Yes, my hook was buried in the fish’s gullet. And yes, it was probably best to remove it. But neither of us wanted to touch the thing.
Jimbo finally ended up cutting the line and using the toe of his sneaker to gently nudge the fish back into the murky depths from which it came.
Less than two months into becoming a fisherman (un…woman?), I suddenly had bragging rights for the biggest fish caught and brought in. The Guys were obviously impressed and viewed me and my fishing prowess with, what I think (I hope), was a new respect, a new reverence. No longer was I the newbie, the guppy. I had snagged the Big Cat.
This was almost ten years ago. I have since netted bass that came close to clearing the two-foot mark, brought in crappie as large as the sole of Jimbo’s size-12 boot, snagged a perch that measured an impressive 13 inches, and even caught a worthy pike or three.
But I still haven’t matched the legendary catch that was The Big Cat.
And, as far as I know, it’s been a pretty tough record to beat.
p.s. I fish open-faced now.
