Something fishy

I grew up in Alaska, a state synonymous with the great outdoors.

Alaska: the Last Frontier.

Alaska: the Great Land.

Alaska: the Land of the Midnight Sun.

Alaska: the place where Man sits comfortably atop the food chain ... until he steps outside.

Alaska: the place so friggin' cold that before you can finish writing your name in the snow, your outside plumbing fixtures have become inside fixtures.

So naturally, over here in Jersey: the Land of the Midnight Carjacking, everyone assumes that I am a die-hard outdoorsman. "Oh," they say, "you're from Alaska? You must love to fish. You must love to hunt. You must love to hike. You must love camping. You must love nature."

Yeah, right.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I dislike nature. In fact, I'm quite fond of nature. Especially the tasty bits. (Have you ever marinated bear meat in teriyaki sauce, then thrown it on a grill? Mmmm-mmmm!) I just think nature is something best appreciated from indoors.

(It has been my experience that the most vocal advocates of the "Mother Nature is fragile and personkind needs to tend to her ever so gently" philosophy live in big cities or the suburbs sprawling around them. "We must protect Mother Nature," they say on their way to pilates with mochaccino froth on their lips. Having lived next door to Mother Nature for most of my life, I can assure you that she can fend for herself. Far from being a delicate flower, she is a first class bitch and she can kill you in ways you can't even imagine. But I digress ...)

My son loves fishing. Unfortunately, despite my father's and grandfather's best efforts to teach me, I know slightly more than squat about that particular pastime, other than to make sure that you remember which cooler is for the fish and which is for the beer.

Luckily for us, we happened across a really nice family at the park the other day. The father was taking his kids out to fish. The son clearly enjoyed catching fish. The daughter clearly enjoyed watching the ducklings. As luck would have it, there was a spare kid-sized pole sitting unused on the ground.

A spare pink pole.

It could have had pansies and streamers on it for all Alex cared. He was offered a chance to fish and he took it.

Now mind you, fishing at Laurel Acres Park is not really fishing. Being that there's no beer allowed, you wind up spending your time actually trying to catch fish. And the fish you get are not the big fighters you see on TV (see - I'm savvy enough about nature to know you can find shows about it). The fish pictured here (left, on the hook) was the biggest catch of the day.

The pond at the park has a bunch of little fish in it that nibble at everything. Everything! When you show up at the edge of the water with a fishing pole, they gather in the shallows, face you, and patiently wait their chance to get a bite of bait.

Alex caught seven during the hour and a half he was at it. All got thrown back; just some got thrown farther than others. But he had a great time.

As luck would continue to have it, one time when he was visiting his mom she got him a fishing pole. Luck had it even more because she was due to bring his sister back from their day together shortly after we got home. He called her up, and lo and behold she happened to have that pole in the trunk of her car.

(The ex has a lot of stuff in the trunk of her car. Fishing poles, laundry, important papers, unimportant papers, probably the Holy Grail. The scary part is that she hadn't used that pole since back when she drove her previous car. When she got the new car, she actually moved the crap from the old trunk into the new one. Yep, there's lots of junk in her trunk!)

So today we went back to the park with a pole of our own.

And bait.

Unfortunately, it's easier to catch fish with worms than with Airheads. It's not that the fish don't like the Airheads ... actually, those little buggers loved the sweet sugary goodness of Airheads.

Once that candy hit the water, the fish went wild. They pushed, they shoved, they rammed each other out of the way. Finfights broke out; it was crazy.

The problem was that Airheads can be nibbled much easier than worms. The fish could dart up, grab a bit, and dart away without ever getting the hook in their mouths. I suspect that they were even dartier their second time around, what with the sugar rush and all.

Needless to say, we lost a lot of bait. And then we hit another snag, so to speak. While I was rebaiting the hook (I am a master baiter, you know), a gust of wind blew the wrapper out of my pocket and into the water.

Now I may not be a tree-hugging, eco-crazy environmentalist nutjob, but I am also not a litterer-er. I was intent on getting that wrapper back ashore and into a trash can where it belonged.

So first I asked the fish to get it. They were jonesin' for more candy; I figured we could work out a deal. But fish hopped up on sugar are not all that cooperative.

Then we hit on a better idea. I had Alex cast the line out so it passed over the wrapper, then reel it in hoping to snag the thing. It started to come back a bit, but then we lost it. To make things worse, the wind started blowing the wrapper out past where Alex could cast. My daughter's friend, who was with us even though I haven't written about her as of yet, tried to cast it out farther. Again, she got the line out past the wrapper, but again it didn't catch. I knew it was up to me to save the day.

Of course, I haven't actually cast a line in many years. I gave it a try, though. I brought my wrist back, held the release button, flung my arm water-ward ...

"You have to let go of the button," Alex said, as the bobber and hook spun circles around the end of the pole.

So I tried again, this time knowing that I had to release in order for the line to make it out to the wrapper. Again I sized up my target, wound up, flung my wrist, and released my thumb.

I watched as the hook and bobber made a perfect arc as they flew through the air toward the wrapper.

And I watched the pole making it's less than perfect arc as it flew through the air behind them.

Apparently, I released with more than my thumb. And now there was a candy wrapper and a pole in the lake. Fortunately, Katrina, the friend, was willing to wander into the water to get the pole.

The line on the reel never really cast well after it's submersion excursion. By the end of the day, we had only caught one fish, albeit a good one. I'm certain that we left a whole bunch of lethargic fish behind. After coming down off their Airhead-induced high, they're probably still swimming listlessly about.

Oh, and before you think I spoiled Mother Nature's beauty by leaving behind the candy wrapper, I was able to retrieve it from the water.

You see, the pond at Laurel Acres Park is not that big. The wind blew the wrapper out of our reach where we were standing, but its path downwind intersected with the shoreline about 100 yards away. When I saw the sun reflecting off the washed up wrapper, I moseyed on over and picked it up.