Saratoga News

Point of View

Carl Heintze

Fishing really is different than shopping for fish

My wife and I have this difference of opinion over fishing. Well, it's not so much a difference of opinion as it is divergent views of the same process.

Fishing for my wife is a lot like going to the supermarket and checking out the meat counter. There are fish there, and one looks them over, picks out what looks like a juicy one and takes it home.

That's all there is to it. The fish are not only inert, they're accommodating.

I, on the other hand, tend to think of fishing as a skill, a duel of wits between me and the fish. I like to think the fish is smart, but I'm smarter. Thus the need for equipment and practice.

You need to have the right rod and the proper reel, the right test line, correct hooks and bait. Bait is very important.

The fish are not going to bite on any old bait, nor is just any old kind of line with a bent pin going to lure a fish your way. You've got to know what the fish are eating, so you can fool them into thinking what's on your hook is what they want to eat. Bait selection is very important, even the way you bait your hook.

And you have to be able to cast properly, dropping your bait in front of the fish's nose, but gently so he or she will think it came there naturally. That takes skill and patience.

Then there's the mystique of fishing. I won't dwell on this, because it's a process and it's unexplainable. One has to experience it to understand it. Suffice it to say, there is a certain kind of cleansing of the soul which comes from sitting on the bank of a silent lake in the Sierra Nevada and looking off to the mountains while waiting for the fish to bite.

Since fish generally bite early in the morning and in the evening, the two best times of the day--sunrise and sunset--ought to be reserved for this reflection, this merging of man and nature and, of course, fish. The tranquil lake just tinged with sunlight or the surface which reflects the setting sun are almost as important as how many fish one catches.

Or they ought to be. But my wife doesn't see it quite this way. She doesn't fish herself, of course, but she's a great fishing coach. I sit there on the bank, having cast my line out as far as I can, oblivious of time, immersed in nature.

After five minutes she says, "Have you got any bites yet?"

(She can't, of course, ask me if I have any fish yet because I haven't, obviously.)

Neither the fish nor I are ready.

"No," I say.

"Maybe you should cast in another place."

Just then a fish jumps in the lake and flops back in the water, his appearance marked by ever-spreading concentric rings. It's not , of course, where I've cast my line.

"I told you," she says. "Cast out there."

In search of domestic peace, I reel in, cast in the general direction of the fish's last appearance above the surface and sit down. Five minutes pass.

"Any bites yet?" she says.

"Yeah, a really big one," I say.

"Let's not be unpleasant," she says.

"Come on fishy, come on fishy," she says, a tone reminiscent of a cheerleader at the football game.

The fish do not appear to hear this, or, if they do hear it, are doubled up with laughter.

More time passes. My wife gets up and begins to patrol the lake shore, peering intently into the water for all the world, it seems to me, as if she is looking into the freezer case at the supermarket.

What she sees there, if anything, I am unable to determine. I try turning my thoughts inward again into inner tranquility by studying the wisp of cloud just emerging over the mountains' ridge.

"They don't seem to be biting," she says.

I nod and burrow back into my reverie.

"Maybe you should change your bait," she says. "Are you sure you still have some bait on your line?"

"Yes," I say with what seems to me to be infinite patience.

She, however, does not interpret it this way. "You don't have to grit your teeth," she says.

I grit them anyway.

Well, I could describe more of this scene to you, but it would only serve to get me in trouble. Suffice it to say, I did not catch any fish.

My wife will tell you there is a lesson in this. Or, at least, she has told me.

"You're just not a fisherman," she says, with what I can only say is brutal candor.

I suppose maybe she is right.

In fact, last year I did not catch any fish at all. I did buy a fishing license--no small investment these days. I fished more or less faithfully. I am sorry to have to report that I caught not a single fish. Nor did I catch any fish the year before, or the year before that.

I think this is why my wife thinks I am not a fisherman. I contend I'm still learning.

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