Gone Fishing

Last Saturday I decided to go fishing with some of my dad’s friends. It had been awhile since I last took on this hobby of mine.

My skills had become somewhat rusty and so Saturday seemed a good day to rejuvenate my fishing skills..
“Give me an interesting experience,” I had said “and I will clean all our fishing gear when we get back.”

A day of bream fishing seemed a good idea to me. At least it did when we were heading out with the sun shining and the wind blowing and the lake glinting like diamonds.
But then we got to work.

“This is the bait,” Tendai announces opening a tin full of herring. Sort of.
After sitting around all summer, the herring are no longer individual fish. They have become herring slime, a revolting mixture of guck, eyeballs and fins.

And the smell.

The smell hits the back of my throat, tears my tonsils out and goes down to make my stomach feel funny.
While I am “enjoying” the smell, Preston pulls a net he had cast and its full of crabs making a crackling sound like the “devil’s knuckles at the gates of hell”
“No fish in there,” I say smiling.

Meanwhile the tide is running hard and I’m here having my “interesting experience”: sitting and sorting out the bait.
My stomach starts to feel as if its going to escape through my nose.
“ You can vomit over the side if you want”

I want to.

After that life settles into a “nice routine” : run over when a line is pulled up, unhook the fish, feel the boat turn, smell that good herring smell, go over to the side, vomit and start over.
It goes well until I get disorientated and vomit into one of the fish bins.


Everything stops. The boat drifts.


Tendai and Preston look at me.

The day is done. All the lines have been pulled up and checked. We head back home without me even having thrown a line.
Interesting the day was, so I fulfilled my part of the deal to clean up all the gear.

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