Family Fishing

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"Hey Noel, you coming?"
It was six a.m. and I couldn't be more tired. We had gone moose hunting the night before (that is, we drove from the Thunder Bay airport to Karen's cottage at sundown) after a flight from Toronto. I summoned every bit of enthusiasm I had for my reply. Finding none, I faked it.
"Yep, coming!".

I bit my lip to wake myself up (god knows I wasn't getting my Grande non-fat frappuccino on this particular morning) and threw on layer after layer of t-shirt to fight the chill. The lake had a thin layer of mist and was, by my standards, quite still.
"It's usually quite still" said Adam, making me feel all the more a city boy, like holding my fishing rod like a teacup wasn't enough. "But we should still get some bites." This, I thought, is truly Adam's heaven. Sitting on a boat, utterly alone, with not a worry in the world - except, in my case, how to look natural spearing a live minnow onto my hook. "Just do it," said Adam, his line already in the water "It ain't getting any less fishy".

As I finally managed to plunge the poor bastard onto my hook the difference between that week and last couldn't have been more vivid. Delphine and I had just spent six nights in the Big Apple eating sushi and generally being yuppy tourists. The city had stricken us both: we each took turns, each and every day, saying how easily we could move to New York. Perhaps the free stay at Kayvon's modern condo in Brooklyn helped...

"Oh my god, I got one!" I yelped, probably waking all the cottage goers on the lake in the process "I got one!!!".
"Reel it in - pull when he doesn't, don't when he does". This was oddly clear. After a short fight I got a huge fish in the net.
"It's just a baby," said Adam, shattering my hopes of stuffing and mounting it "you'll have to throw it back."

I will have to throw it back?!? Wouldn't that mean I'd have to touch it?

I had spent time with the rest of the family, too. We had the chance to spend a few days in Toronto before heading up, including a Dim Sum en route home from the airport. It's a funny thing, growing up. Almost all the things we are sure matter most turn out not to, while the things ignored suddenly do - like family and old friends. We get sick of our family, then we get homesick. I guess living far away has taught me a thing or two about the importance of those we love - a scary thing when you do live $1,000 away from the closest family member.

"Just stick your index finger in its mouth and pinch real tight. Mind the teeth." Fish have teeth? I've never seen a filet with molars! Gulping (hopefully not audibly), I grabbed the beast and posed for the photo.

By the end of the trip we had reeled-in about twenty of the suckers and even decided to eat one for dinner. After bringing it in we had to choose who would do the ugly bit of, to put it delicately, bashing its head in with a rock. Approaching me with a slight air of humbleness, Adam passed me a rock the size of a shoe and said "here, I can't do it."

"Pfffff!!" I said, standing up strait. "Don't be such a pussy!"

SPLAT!

We all grow up sometime....

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