The Big One

Why do I love fishing so much?

Most people think it’s boring.

You don’t really do much. You just wait.

You stare at the sky and the water and wait.

Almost always, you don’t catch anything.

But then . . . every once in a while . . . you catch something.

And maybe once in your life . . . if you’re lucky . . . you catch The Big One. 

This is a story about the day I caught The Big One. 

It’s not like I come from a fishing family or anything. But one day last year, my dad’s friend Steve took us fishing on his boat. After 10 minutes, I caught a huge bluefish!

“Beginner’s luck,” grumbled my brother, Jack. 

He was right, but I didn’t care. From that moment on, I loved fishing.

Nobody else caught anything the whole day.

“This is so boring,” said Jack.

“I want to like fishing, but I just can’t pull it off,” my dad said.

“It’s getting late,” said my mom.

It was official. Nobody in the family liked fishing except for me.

After that trip with Steve, I begged my dad to take me fishing, but he kept making excuses.

“Sorry. I have to do my taxes,” he said.

“I have to fix my car,” he said another day.

“I have to take a nap,” he said another day, even though it was 10 in the morning.

Then my mom told me about a fishing club at the YMCA.

 “You’ll get to be with other people who love fishing as much as you do,” she said.

“It sounds awesome!” I said. And it was awesome. We went to oceans, lakes, rivers, brooks, streams . . . you name it, we fished it.

After each fishing trip, my parents would ask me all about it and try to be interested.

“Billy’s line got tangled!” I would exclaim. “And Nicole’s bait box spilled and there were worms all over the place!”

“Wow,” said my mom.

“Gee,” said my dad.

They just didn’t get it. 

No one really gets it, except for other fishermen. (And fisherwomen.)

Then during the midwinter meeting of our group, I got the best news of my entire fishing life.

“We’re going ice fishing,” Mr. Pinkton announced. Mr. Pinkton was the leader of our fishing club.

 “We’re going to be waking up at 5 a.m., driving two hours upstate, and fishing on a frozen lake for seven hours in 15-degree weather.”

We all broke out in cheers.

Ice fishing! On a frozen lake! I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded fantastic!

“For this trip, each child must be accompanied by a parent or guardian,” Mr. Pinkton added.

Uh-oh. 

It wasn’t until the next night at dinner that I got the nerve to bring it up.

“Dad, what are you doing on Saturday?”

“Why, what’s up?” he asked.

“Well, I have this ice-fishing trip, and a parent has to come.”

My parents looked at each other.

“Well, let me think about this,” my dad said. “I could either go freeze on a lake for hours or sit in our nice warm house reading a good book.”

I slumped in my chair.

“Ice fishing it is,” he said.

My heart soared. “Really?”

“Yup. On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

He smiled. “That I never have to do it again.”

At exactly 5:13 Saturday morning, I felt a tug on my arm.

“Mmmmghrenmph,” I said.

“Jojo, wake up,” Dad said.                

My dad turned on the light, which was brighter than the sun. I got up.

We packed the car full of coats, boots, snow pants, sweaters, gloves,
hats, and, of course, cookies.

When I got out of the car two hours later, I got smacked in the face with the coldest wind I’d ever felt in my life.

The lake was down a long hill, surrounded by pine trees that stretched all the way up to the sky. It was a pretty amazing place. But I was too busy trying to feel my toes to really notice.

Mr. Pinkton was already out on the lake with all the other kids and their parents, carving holes in the ice to drop our fishing lines through.

“Hi, guys,” he called. “Down here!”

My best friend in the fishing group, Charlie Lopez, was already sitting in a chair over an ice hole, fishing.

“Catch anything?” I called.

“Just about to,” he said. All fishermen are hopeful people.

Dad made his way straight for the little tent that Mr. Pinkton had set up for people who wanted to get warm and have hot chocolate.

“I’ll be in here,” my dad said. I looked at him.

“Just for a second,” he added.

“Your hole is ready!” Mr. Pinkton called to me. I checked it out. It was a beauty, perfectly round. The water rippled below six inches of solid ice.

I tried to put a worm on my hook, but my hands were frozen stiff.
Mr. Pinkton ended up doing it for me.

“Where’s your dad?” he asked.

“Drinking hot chocolate.”

Mr. Pinkton laughed. “Smart man,” he said, but I was embarrassed. Why wasn’t my dad out here with all the other parents? Couldn’t he like fishing just this once? 

But then I heard a familiar voice say, “Let’s get this party started!”

I turned around and there was my dad, slipping all over the ice, his hat falling off his head, trying to hold two cups of cocoa with his huge mittens.

He looked down into the deep hole. “Somewhere in that dark, mysterious lake, there’s a frozen fish stick with my name on it,” he said.

For hours, we fished. Which really means we waited.

But that’s what’s awesome about fishing. You’re not really waiting. You’re doing other stuff, like talking. 

And my dad and I had tons to talk about. We talked about baseball, movies, music, food, school, girls, animals, and a bunch of other stuff. We told some jokes. We got more hot chocolate.

But we didn’t catch anything.

When the sun started to go down, we ran out of things to talk about. “I think my nose just fell off,” my dad said, and even though he was trying to be funny, I knew that he was miserable.

Suddenly, I was mad at myself. I decided that this fishing trip had been a lousy idea. I felt bad that I’d dragged my dad all the way to this frozen lake just to sit there and not catch anything.

I felt dumb for liking fishing. 

Then, about 10 minutes before we were supposed to pack up, there was a tug on our line.

“Dad! I got a bite!” I exclaimed.

My dad jumped to his feet, then immediately slipped on the ice and fell on his butt, spilling hot chocolate all over himself.

I started pulling. Whatever was on my line pulled back hard. It felt strong and huge!

“Reel it in gently,” Dad advised, even though he had no idea what he was talking about.

Mr. Pinkton came running over. “Joe’s got something!” he yelled to the rest of the group. “Go easy on that thing,” he said to me.

Finally, after one last tug, I was able to pull my line out of the hole. Everyone gathered around to see what I caught.

I reeled it in, full of excitement. At first, it was hard to tell what kind of fish it was. Then it became clearer. It wasn’t a fish at all.

It wasn’t even a live animal of any kind.

It was something large, fuzzy, and very waterlogged.

“It’s a stuffed elephant!” Charlie yelled. 

“What’s a stuffed elephant doing in the lake?” Eddy Chan wondered.

“Let’s cook it on the grill!” screamed Danny Burke. “It’ll be delicious!”

Everyone laughed as I untangled the big, pink, furry mess from my line and my rod. My ears were burning with embarrassment.        

“It’s not funny,” I said, fighting back tears.

I was about to throw the elephant back down the hole, but my dad stopped me. He brushed all the dirt and grime and ice off the elephant.

“We’re taking him home,” my dad said.

In the car, we talked about the freezing cold, and us finally getting a bite, and dad falling on his butt and spilling the hot chocolate, and me catching the stuffed elephant.

We laughed the whole way.

“That was a blast,” my dad said as we pulled into the driveway.

“It was?”    

“It was,” he said. “Thanks for taking me.”

Two months later, in the spring, it was time for my fishing club’s first regular trip of the season. I was packing up my gear when my dad knocked on my door.

“Is it OK if I come fishing with you?”

I looked at him. “Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure,” he said.

And he came fishing with me. He also came the time after that. And the time after that.

Altogether, we caught one fish, a little striper that we threw back. But it didn’t matter. We talked and laughed and ate and had a great time. That’s what fishing is, and it turned out my dad loved it almost as much as I did.

I guess you could say he was hooked.

And that’s how I caught The Big One.