Fishing At Full Volume

A boy, his dad, their fish. It's a beautiful thing

Father’s Day is coming up. This is my dad and me, circa 197...8? 9? I'm not sure. But the place is Sekiu, Washington and our trophy stick was a broom handle from the cabin we were staying in. I don’t know if he cleaned it before putting it back. This is the guy I get my passion for fishing from. Every time I'm on the water, he is there too, watching the rods and overreacting to every little twitch of the tip.

“Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!” he’d blurt as the rod tip paint-brushed up and down with the rolling water. He’d then grow quiet, his eyes locked in on the top eyelet and his body tensing like a hunting dog keyed on a hidden bird. His hand would be poised to grab the pole from its holder. All he needed …was to … see that tip… bend just …a little … further.

“Dad, it’s waves from that boat.” I’d say, pointing to a 30 foot cruiser that passed by our stern.

“SHHHH”. He’d reply, followed a few moments later by a resigned, “Nope”, his gaze swiveling away. Literally, those moments were the only times fishing that he was ever truly quiet.

The point is, fishing with my dad was a lot. He was never a quiet man. The word demure did not apply. 6’3 in his prime, he was mostly legs and arms, and on the uncertain surface of a restless Puget Sound, they didn’t always work in tandem with each other. An unexpected wave- hell, even one we saw coming from a mile away- would often send him crashing from one side of the boat to another like the proverbial loose cannon on the deck of a ship. He didn’t even have to be standing. 

If it was spring or summer, there’d be a Mariner game on a portable radio, dangling from a cord wrapped around the steering wheel column just above his knees. The volume of the game varied according to which direction the speaker was facing as the boat rocked back and forth, up and down. If the Mariners weren’t playing, he’d be listening to the news or, if the Olys were starting to hit, singing some Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra. He was a hell of a good singer.

If, um, nature called,, why use a Folger’s can when he could just go over the side? Didn’t matter to him if another boat was 20 yards away. “Nothing they haven’t seen before!” he’d say if I happened to make a mortified comment- which I usually did. He would make exceptions and use a can if there were ladies on that nearby boat. The man was not unrefined. Sometimes he’d even make an effort to turn his back. 

And if we were lucky enough to get bit? The entire region knew. His whoops and hollers were loud enough to startle beachgoers. “GOT ONE ON!” he might yell, not so much to those in his boat as to any other boats that may be within 5 or so nautical miles. If a guest in our boat was fighting the fish, “KEEP YOUR POLE HIGH” was literally the only intelligible instruction he ever gave. Everything else was just partially formed words or guttural bursts of noise. And if the fish was finally, successfully brought to the net? He’d let out shouts of triumph and joy that would make your average Price is Right contestant seem catatonic.

The cliche of a fishing father is that of a quiet, patient man, wise to the ways of wind and water. His movements are deliberate. He is not prone to impulse of action or speech. Not my dad. In life, he stood out like a red buoy on a dark blue sea. The guy loved living and wasn’t afraid to show it. And man, did he love the water most of all. Whatever struggles he might be having at work or in life were dissolved by being on his boat, whether the fish were biting or not. Most of all, he loved taking his two boys, my brother Dan and me out with him. And to this day, and for all the rest of ‘em, too, we love him for it. In fact, we’d happily shout that to the heavens at the very top of our lungs right now, except that a reply might come back: “SHHHH”. Because our dad might just be watching a rod tip very, very closely.