It wasn’t the best day I ever had fishing because of the size of the fish, or because of the number I caught. It was memorable because it was the first.
As I recall I was six, or thereabouts. My dad was working hard to support our little family of him and my mother and me. My dad’s brother, Uncle Elmer, and his wife, my aunt Margaret, lived next door. One day my uncle came over to ask my mother if he could take me fishing. With her agreement, the next day Uncle Elmer and I got in his Desoto with two bamboo, bait-fishing poles sticking out of the backseat windows and drove to the Sacramento River.
Uncle Elmer parked on the levee, got our poles out of the car, and along with a bucket carrying two bottles of beer for him and a soda for me, plus some other things, we walked down the loamy bank and sat at the edge of the water. The Sacramento was a big, wide, murky thing that I imagined as the Amazon or the Nile.
I knew practically nothing about fishing other than seeing the trout my dad brought back from his rare trips into the Sierras. Still, I was excited, imagining all the fish we would have to show my parents.
“Uncle, are we gonna catch silvery ones like my dad brings home from his fishing trips?”
“Well, young man, if we’re lucky we’ll catch one or two you can brag about.”
Rigging up was easy with no reels or guides, just a simple line wrapped around the length of bamboo including the essential bobber tied to the end.
My uncle reached into the bucket, taking a strip of bacon out of waxed paper before cutting it into small pieces. On the hook that hung below the bobber he threaded on the pieces. Then he flipped the line, bobber and all, out into the water, handing me the pole. With a stern look, he admonished me to pay attention and wait for a ‘strike.’ Seeing the puzzled look on my face he continued.
“When you see that bobber move,” pointing at my line, “. . . you give that pole a jerk.”
I promised I would as I took it all in, mesmerized by the adventure of my new experience.
Across the river I could hear a tractor working the rich soil of the farms there. The trees surrounding us on the riverbank hosted Purple Finches, English Sparrows and the Red-winged Blackbirds with their chevrons of scarlet. The music of their chirping and trilling was a natural orchestra score for the soft, blue sky overhead dotted with marshmallow clouds.
“Hey, buddy. . .. “
It was a couple of hours later. The sun shown on the river from a different angle.
“Charles, we probably ought to be headed back. Let’s gather our stuff.”
In the bucket my uncle carried back to the car I saw three perch and two catfish. Uncle Elmer had helped me unhook the perch. The others he had caught when I had nodded off.
My dad was home when we arrived. He tousled my hair and winked at his brother as he praised our catch.
“Son, nice job. I can tell you’re hooked.”
Reflecting on that day now – many, many years later – having fished from Alaska, B.C. and Montana to Belize and Honduras – I nodded in recognition of the fact that it isn’t the size or number of fish caught that makes an angling moment special. Sure, I’d gladly relive them all again. But none of those trips might ever have happened had it not been for that one summer day on the Sacramento River when I was six years old, and the sky was dotted with marshmallow clouds.
