Bullhead Morning

Awoke at 4 a.m. last Sunday, still dark of course, made a pot of coffee, loaded the pole, bait, and tackle box into the car, and was at Lake Mendota by 4:45. The sun was not yet up, the clouds over the lake were just beginning to tint with the imminent sunrise. The distant clink of a bell drifted in from where the rich folks moor some sailboats, a flashing white light from a buoy out there. Near my fishing spot, on the narrow neck of a small lagoon used to launch boats, I noticed a pair of lights, one green, one red, on each side of the entrance -- I'd never noticed them before, because I'd never been there in the dark. Reminded me of the scene in The Great Gatsby.

I picked my way over small boulders and riprap, and settled in just as the gray light made it possible to see. I’d surrendered my flashlight a few days earlier when son Daniel left for camp, but I could see well enough to select, cut up, and bait a nightcrawler from the small white-and-yellow bait container Anna had given me for my birthday. I was surprised at how alive and agitated the worms were -- they'd been in my custody for more than a week, stored in an insulated box with foam refrigerants. It was, I thought, a good morning for a worm to die, though he probably didn't share my perspective. That's one aspect of fishing I'd never really thought much about before -- the futility of resistance for those lower down the chain. The worms have no real hope of escape or mercy – assuming they can formulate such thoughts -- nor do the fish if and when they are caught. I'm an omnipotent, and not an especially benevolent despot, though I have made a commitment to primarily catch-and-release. The flaw in catch-and-release, of course, is that the catching occurs at all, consisting of tricking a fish into latching onto a sharp hook that slices into the flesh. In the best of circumstances, the hook goes into the lip, and is relatively easy to remove. In worse cases, the fish is hooked deep down inside; then the better course is to cut the line and let the fish go, in the vague hope that the hook will work loose. But even the best of intentions can go wrong, as they did the previous week, when I snipped the line on a small perch, who then flipped out of my hand before I could release him, and bounced off a rock into the water. He was not the same after that, flipping his tail, but staying upside down and near the surface. I don’t know whether the fall injured him or if he’d been damaged inside by the hook, but I do know he stayed near me the rest of my morning, with an occasional desultory splash as he half-circled about, reminding me of his presence and imminent demise.

But catch-and-release was mostly a hypothetical matter that morning.

The water was mirror calm as I cast the line out to the spot where I'd once caught a large smallmouth and numerous perch. A seagull screeched past, and as the sun rose, ducks began paddling about, including a mother followed close by two ducklings. In my morbid musings I recalled reading about the perilous lives of ducklings, what with snapping turtles and muskies about -- Lake Mendota does have muskies, mostly stocked every spring, about two feet long, big enough to provide sport -- and terrorize most lakelife, but not trophy size. A few boats began coming by, most occupants muscular young men, solo, or with compadres or girlfriends, or older men with pot bellies and baseball caps, some in fancy boats that made me wonder about money. They generally said hello or tipped their caps, but I sensed an air of smugness, as though I were an amateur to their well-equipped machine. I am I suppose somewhat of an experienced fisherman – though more of a journeyman than an expert; I can tie the right knots, I know a jig from a swivel, and can recognize most fish. Basic stuff.

My father had known much more, and had taught himself to be a fairly impressive flyfisherman, able to place a fly apparently whereever he wanted, whenever he wanted, an art he never passed on to me -- though I don't recall ever asking him to -- spincast reels always seemed the easier route, and his rod-and-reel remained exotic and mysterious to me. Flyfishing was one of the few affectations I ever saw in him, and I find it both hard and easy to picture him spending the long hours it must have taken to perfect that skill, easy to see in the abstract, but hard to visualize him actually practicing; I don't think he took it with him on his travels, so he must have done all that in the years before I was born.  When I think of it, I see him alone in the White River Canyon of western Nebraska or with mom on one of the local lakes, a newly-married couple with their lives still unfolding, like the gentle curl of his fishing line at the end of a graceful cast.

One of my most enduring memories of fishing with him was at Verdon lake in southeastern Nebraska, when I was standing on a small rock at the dam-end of a small reservoir, casting a jig. Dad flicked his fly to the base of the rock, and pulled out a mid-sized largemouth from right below my feet. We both smiled, and it became one of those bits of shared lore on future trips, and a memory I treasure.

But back to Madison in July 2012. In what was a foretaste of things to come, a large bass surfaced right next to my bobber, enough to make it tip and bounce, then he disappeared. Not much else happened; I suspect the warming water has driven the perch to deeper places in the lake, where the boat people ply with their depth-finders, and slowed the appetites of anything that remains in the channel. From time to time the bobber twitched, but more often than not I simply reeled it in, checked the worm, and re-cast. Finally I got a solid strike. At first he didn't resist much, so I presumed it was a perch. But as he neared shore he fought a lot, and I presumed it was bass, though it didn’t run so much as resist. I was surprised that it turned out to be a nine-inch bullhead.

Because I wasn't fishing the bottom, I wasn't expecting him. In retrospect, though, he was the second bullhead I've caught unexpectedly -- the other, when I was a teen, struck on a jig I was using for panfish; that one, too, fought like a bass. All the other bullheads I caught were when I was bankfishing, on the bottom, as a kid on the impoundments of central Nebraska, or in the Little Blue River. Seeing this guy was like a visit from an old friend, attractive enough in his fishy way, more brown than green, with a yellow underside, slick-skinned, with indifferent, glassy eyes. Made me grateful that I had bought a pair of fishing gloves, so I didn't have to worry much about the spikes around his fins as I worked the hook loose. I kept him in my live-net for a bit, to show to my daughter when I got home. But when he turned out to be the only catch after three hours, I carefully returned him to the water. He flipped away most indignantly, my only catch of that day.

Catching him means I've come close to hitting the cycle at the Lake -- perch, bluegill, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, white bass, perch, sheepshead drum, and now a bullhead. Leaves muskies, pike, crappie, catfish, and carp -- and in my youth I caught a pike, as well as numerous crappie and carp, leaving only the muskie on my bucket list. All in all, I found it a most relaxing morning. As the saying goes, “A bad day fishing is better good day without fishing.” I find it rewarding, on most days, offering time for reflection and a bit of a challenge. And though I may sometimes say it's the experience and not the result that matters, it's not quite true -- otherwise I'd fish in a swimming pool. I do like to catch a few. This day, though, I caught one. He was enough. And in an unexpected act of benevolence, I dumped the rest of the nightcrawlers into a weedy patch of ground, granting them another chance.

The old men and the lake

Yesterday morning a brief but intense thunderstorm broke through the drought, filled the gutters and cleared out the drainspouts -- rousting the chipmunks who had settled in for a long stay. The sky soon cleared, though, if I squint I see just a touch more green amidst the brown and stiff grasses. I had a dentist appt early that morning, which I decided to parlay into an excuse to return to Lake Mendota, a sort of low-key Old Man and the Sea, with apologies to Hemingway.

I had a few left-over nightcrawlers and saw no point in letting them die for no good reason. The storm had stirred up the waters quite a bit, waves were slapping against the rock riprap that lined the neck of the small lagoon that's become my personal fishing hole. I decided to move to the other side, around a bend, where the water was much calmer. A bit of a letdown -- last week I caught an 18-inch smallmouth at my usual spot, and had planned to return to his hangout to see if we could meet again (catch-and-release).

I've taken to fishing with a float now, a sort of modified return to the bottom-fishing of my Nebraska childhood, which consisted of casting out a weighted gob of worms into a reservoir or sluggish little river, and awaiting a tug on the line by a catfish or bullhead or carp. Now I use a small balsa float, white and flourescent yellow, with a long point that projects up. Much more sensitive than the cheaper red-and-white bobbers, and more absorbing to watch. Sometimes as I drift off to sleep I get an image of it twitching and jerking, making concentric circles in the still water, then dashing about before disappearing altogether -- I am invariably reminded of the beginning scene of "Jaws " when the girl swimmer finds herself flung about on the surface of the water before being drawn under.

Anyway, I was pleased to find that the perch were active in this spot, and caught quite a few, some of whom were almost keepers, and would be if I were so inclined. But I have several in the freezer already, and I'm not all the much for eating them. Also, these had cooperatively gotten themselves hooked through the lip rather than swallowing the hooks, so returning them to the water was an easy option, and one for which they seemed appreciative. I was going to say "grateful" but I realize that involves a level of interaction which I don't think the fish and I shared. They were no doubt relieved to be safely back in the water, but I doubt they had any conception of me as a benevolent being.

Shortly after I settled in, an older Asian man showed up, Hmong I think, with a long bamboo-type pole and a folding chair. Quite a few of those folks fish these local lakes, most though nearer to downtown, in the shallow water of Monona Lake Bay. They are usually fishing for sustenance rather than sport, and tend to keep just about any fish legally allowed. Moments later a pair of middle-aged African-American fishermen rumbled past as they headed their bright fiberglass boat toward deeper waters, fancy fishing poles silhoutted, their conversation drifting across the water. I heard one comment that "an old cane pole, that's the way to do it, that's the fishing I grew up with." Though they didn't stop, and their full-fledged fancy rigs festooned the deck.

 Watching the old Asian man, and watching the few boats going out, I realized what I have perhaps become -- one of the old guys fishing the shore, while the younger or more determined types glide by on their way to bigger things. Brought to mind, incongrously perhaps, the lines from Whitman's Song of Myself about timidly staying close to shore, not far, rhetorically, from another line in the same poem, "the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with bitterness worse than gall." But, old man or not, timid or not, gallish or not, I was mostly content, in the warm sun, hearing the birds, smelling the freshly stirred water.

Catching the perch was interesting, but I knew the moment I hooked a bluegill -- perch hit strong, but then they more or less give in. Bluegills circle and fight. Not the savage runs of a bass, but tight circles. This one was about handsized, and very beautifully marked, perhaps even a pumpkinseed -- and he swallowed the hook. I didn't want to try and extricate it -- I've done that often enough, with the mute rigidity of the fish as I work the hook around in its innards, so I cut the line instead. He was large enough to keep, but I didn't want to take him home as a solo, so I gestured toward the Hmong man and pantomimed whether he wanted it. He made it clear he would do so happily, so I took it over there. About an hour later I caught another, smallish, perch, who also swallowed the hook. I again cut the line and released him. It was getting on toward noon, and I sort of had other obligations, so rather than put on another hook, I packed things up. I gave the last nightcrawlers to the Hmong man, who was most grateful.