Fishing Rules

I’m often asked by old friends about my retirement in Florida, and what I do to amuse myself all the livelong day.  Many of them, knowing my interests, assume I do a lot of fishing.

I’ve always believed there are few pleasures in life to compare to the joys of fishing.  But only, of course, if it’s done properly—my way.  I have my own, sacrosanct fishing rules.

There are probably as many ways to fish as there are people who go fishing, so it makes sense the right way will be defined differently by each of us.  My way might be totally inappropriate for anyone else.

But as a younger man in the wilds of northern Ontario, my way was perfection, itself—or almost, since there was one flaw, which I shall come to. 

As I remember, the proper fishing excursion would begin quite early in the morning, when all save the birds were still asleep.  I’d rise quietly, so quietly as to pass unnoticed by snoring comrades on my way from the cottage to the water’s edge.  The canoe, already laden with the necessary gear, would be launched smoothly into the mist-enshrouded lake.  My body would stretch exultantly as the paddle cut deeply through the water’s mirrored, ebony surface.  The pleasure had begun.

I’d be well offshore when the sun first brought the forest alight in gleaming greens, bouncing and dancing its way through the translucent leaves.  I’d watch transfixed as the mist lifted, a curtain rising before an audience of one.

The water would part before my craft, bowing away in widening ripples to lap gently against the shore of the fishing cove.  The lilting lament of a loon was all that broke the silence.  Great granite slabs, topped by bush and trees, sloped down to the lake, which tossed back their image from its glassy depths. 

Peace, rampant upon nature’s field.  The pleasure was full-known.

Alas, it never lasted, for actually trying to catch fish would interrupt the sylvan sequence of morning life, disturbing the natural ebb and flow.  And therein lay the flaw in my otherwise-perfect rules for fishing.  That interruption would constitute a sacrilege in nature’s cathedral of calm, devoid of joy.  The pleasure came from the preliminaries.

Thus, I had to adapt so as to come to grips with the incongruity of being a fisherman who didn’t like to fish.  My tackle box always contained a book or two—a novel, perhaps, or a favourite book of verse.  It held my harmonica, that ‘one-man band’ with which I whiled away countless hours.  And, long before the era of smartphones, there was always a camera, loaded and ready.

In short, I still went fishing, but I did not fish.  When I reached the cove, I’d cease my paddling, lie back in the bottom of the canoe, and just let it drift ‘til it was time to go back.

Waterbugs would skitter their erratic dash across the water, an occasional fish would jump with a splash.  When a kingfisher would dart down to stand on the prow of the canoe, undeterred by my presence, I’d know I had become a piece of the very scene I was observing.

On those occasions, I was one with my environment—at once apart from it, and a part of it.

There were always questions from comrades, of course, when I’d return from each excursion.  What was biting?  Pickerel?  Pike?  Muskie?  What gear was I using?  Did I catch anything?

I’d reply that nothing was biting, or that there were only a few nibbles.

The most crucial question they always asked:  where did I fish? 

In that one respect, I guess, my peculiar fishing rules were exactly like those of any true fisherman.  I would never tell anyone where I’d been when I was fishing.

That would have spoiled it.

_{© J. Bradley Burt 2021}