WIWAB - Hidey Hole

We walked downstream back toward our camp. At the last bend before reaching what I now thought of as "our" sandbar, he stopped. "Let's try once more where I caught that other one. Wade out in the shallows here. See if you can find the channel."

I'd been walking in the water pulling the fish on the stringer behind me -- keeping him alive. Now Dad took the stringer from me and handed me my rod, a worm already dangling from the hook.

"Feel where the current gets strongest," he said. The water was only to my knees, but I sensed a change in the current as I walked toward the far side with my rod. "When you feel it, start walking downstream as far as you can."

I did and felt the bottom change from sand to pebbles to larger stones as the current washed away the finer particles. I was in the channel. With one step the water came to my thighs, in two more it was at my waist. I felt forward with my foot and the bottom continued to slope away in front of me.

"That's good enough. Now make a short cast. Let the worm bounce along the bottom and run up under that brush pile."

In front of me, branches over hung the water, almost touching the surface. The sun was going down and it was even darker under the trees. I could make out the pile of brush that had collected among the roots of the trees on the bank. The water swirled and eddied there. I pushed the button on my spin-casting reel and flipped the worm a few feet in front of me. The line tumbled off the reel as the current swept it toward the brush. I could feel the worm and sinker bouncing across the rocks on the bottom.

"OK. Stop it right there for a minute." I turned the handle on the reel. The line tightened. It moved back and forth in the current.

"Good job, boy. Right in their hidey hole."
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Laying under the bank where the water had hollowed out a depression, the fish felt a vibration in its black whiskers different than background movement of the current flowing by. Dully his mind came more awake. His whiskers were stubby and shorter now from constantly probing along the bottom for food. His tail and fins were rounded - even the spines were no longer sharp. But no matter, he was too big to be eaten by other fish now. His mouth and head were scarred from craw fish claws, fish spines, and bites from other catfish during mating time.

Then one of the whiskers sensed a microscopic piece of worm on the current. Food. He swung his head and felt several more scent bits along his whiskers. Instinctively his tail flexed and he moved out from under the bank, moving toward where the scent was strongest. Again he felt a vibration. And then his whiskers touched something soft, near the bottom floating in the current. Scent told him it was a worm. The soft thing moved and twitched. The fish's mouth gaped suddenly wide and the influx of water sucked the worm into it's throat. Something hard there too, though. Not right. The fish opened its mouth wide and tried to turn away. The hard thing caught on its bony lip. The fish snapped its mouth closed trying to crush the thing. He felt it turn in his mouth. No pain. Now the worm was down its throat and the fish swallowed -- satisfied. It relaxed its body, stopped fighting the current, and started to drift back downstream to the depression under the bank. But he wasn't drifting back as he should.
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"I think I'm hung up again." I said, pulling up on the rod and watching it bend.

"I don't think so.", he said. "Just give it a minute, reel in tight, then pull up hard as you can ... but don't harelip him."

"Huh?"

"Don't pull the hook right out of his mouth."

"I think I'm hung up." and I reeled in until the line was tight. Then I pulled up hard on the rod. The line jerked tight and then slowly began to move toward the far shore near the brush.

"You got one, boy."

"I got one. I got one. I got one. What do I do? What do I do?"

"Just keep the line tight. Keep your rod tip up. Keep it up. Reel him in when you can."

I cranked hard on the reel and pulled the rod tip even higher. The rod bent and the line started to sing.

"Easy. Eeeeeasy. Don't horse him."

"What?"

"Don't horse him. Just keep the pressure on and reel when you can." He lay his arm load of fishing gear and the stringer with the fish on the sandbar to my left then walked out to where I was standing. He was holding the dip net. "That's it. Just keep the rod bent. Now lower it a little but don't lose the bend. Now reel then pull up again. Great. He's coming. Keep it up."

I pulled and reeled and little by little the angle the line made with the water got less. He was coming to us. I pulled, lowered, reeled.
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The fish was confused. It dimly remembered this happening before. The pressure on its jaw. The way its head would turn one way then be pulled back the other. Then he saw it. Something strange in the water like the legs of a huge heron. Instinct took over. He snapped his tail and turned hard across the current towards the deep water.
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Suddenly the line began to rip off the spool. The reel went zeeeee as the line poured off and the fish headed across the stream. I had to lower the rod tip. The pull was too much for me.

"Keep that rod tip up, boy. He'll tire. Keep the tip up. I hope he doesn't make it to the brush. He'll break our line for sure."

I put the butt of the rod in my stomach and pulled the rod up with both hands.

"That's it, boy. That's it. Oh, it's a good one. Look at him go."

Now the fish was at the far bank and racing downstream. With the current to help him the line went off the reel even faster. Then the fish reached the shallows at the far end of the pool. It turned.

"Reel. Reel. Reel. He's coming back. Keep the bend in the rod."

I let go of the rod with my right hand and used it to furiously crank the handle of the reel, taking back the line I'd lost. The fish stopped near the brush pile.

"Pull, boy. Pull or he'll get under that brush and that'll be it. Pull. Smooth and steady. Pull. Let's walk toward the shallows if we can."

I did as he instructed. The fish gained a few more feet toward the bank then stopped. The line moved slowly side to side as though the fish were shaking his head. A slow pull to the left then a slow pull to the right. I couldn't move him.

"It's a good one. Only the big ones do that. They put their feet in the mud and you can't do a thing with them. You're doing great."

For the briefest moment I thought: Feet in the mud? Fish? I pulled up again. This time I moved him. I reeled again. Slowly I pulled him toward the shallows at our feet. He came within sight this time. Visible under the brownish water. Brown himself, but also green and silver with a flash of white as he turned his head. But with that one glimpse he was off again, heading toward the far bank. The line zipped off the reel again. I pulled and waited and reeled and pulled and waited.

What seemed like hours later, he was at our feet again.

"I'll lower the net and you guide him in." He wet the dip net in the water and then kneeled and lowered the hoop until it was nearly on the bottom. With one last pull I moved the fish over the net and Dad stood up. Flopping and twisting in the net was the biggest fish I'd ever seen.