True Believers - July 26 2021

 

True Believers

July 26 2021

They all want to motor out

as far away as possible.

To the end of a forgotten bay

a quiet shady dog-leg.

Around the bend, and then the next,

because the perfect spot

is always just ahead.

Or narrower and narrower,

turning at every fork

until there isn't any further.

As if the fish knew

their only chance

was to seek seclusion.

As if as far as you can

and the big kahuna would be hiding out

in some clever secret lair,

and the harder and more remote

the greater the reward.

Either wary survivors

who are fat and scarred and wise to our games,

or naïve first-timers

eager to take the bait.

When you could easily throw in a line

right off the dock

and reel in a big one.

But where is the fun in that?

Motoring out to the ends of the earth

in search of the biggest prize.

Like the guy who passed me by today

and asked if there are fish here.

What else could I say

but why not?

Fishers are true believers,

certain of their skill

and full of missionary zeal.

While ecumenical fish

are agnostics among the faithful;

spread evenly through the lake,

and easy pickings

however you bait your hook.

I was out paddling with the dogs, and a fisherman who passed asked just that. I live on the lake, and so should know better. But I don't fish, so if there are secret hot spots or dreaded dead zones, I have no idea. Although it strikes me that fish are everywhere. Why not? Like molecules of gas in a vacuum, why shouldn't they evenly disperse?

I find the notion of skill in fishing to be more of a conceit than anything real. Surely it's as hard (or easy) to catch a big one as it is the littlest, so why all the manly pride in bragging about poundage and length? And the notion that the further away from civilization the better the catch strikes me as terribly anthropocentric:  as if the the fish know – or care – where we live or how far we've gone!

I know there are counter-arguments:   that some spots get fished out, while others may offer better habitat or more opportunities to feed; and that the big ones are fewer and further between, and take more skill to reel in. So perhaps it's that I'm not interested in the sport, and just taking easy pot shots. Shooting fish in a barrel, so to speak!

I think the comment by that passing fisherman must have conspired with a piece I read in today's New Yorker (Aug 2, 2021) to inspire this poem. It's an essay by Ann Patchett called Flight Plan, and here, from near the beginning of the piece, is the excerpt in question. (I probably shouldn't have included this, because it's clearly much better and more fun to read than the poem it helped inspire!)

“ . . . The pilots who flew for the lodge struck me as men who would have had a hard time finding work elsewhere. After a flight of twenty or thirty minutes, we would land on a river or a lake, then pile out of the plane and into a small waiting boat. The plane would then taxi off while the guide and the boat took us even deeper into nowhere, the idea being that special fish congregated in secret locations far from civilization. But there was no civilization, and there were plentiful fish in the lake in front of the lodge. Taking a plane to a boat to find an obscure fishing spot seemed to be a bit of Alaskan theatre. After we reached whatever pebbly shoal the guide had in mind for the day, we arranged our flies and waded hip-deep into the freezing water to cast for trout. Despite the significant majesty of the place, wading around in a river for eight hours wasn’t my idea of a good time. Bears prevented me from wandering off. Rain prevented me from reading on the shore. Mosquitoes prevented everything else.”