Many years ago, when I had decided it was time to seek a career change, I engaged the services of a company that helped advise people like me how to go about finding new work opportunities. This was long before the time of internet job searches, which now seem to be controlled by Artificial Intelligence brains that have no human empathy or common sense. (A topic for a later blog, perhaps.)
During the interview process, the individual guiding me through my search asked me what was my most memorable accomplishment. I paused for a moment and then blurted out, “the first fish I ever caught by myself.”
I instantly regretted saying what I thought was a really dumb thing. I feared that my interviewer might guide me toward a career on a tuna fishing boat where I would spend days on the deck of a battered trawler mucking through fish guts to make a living to feed my family.
In retrospect, I think it wasn’t such a bad thing to say. There was a great sense of accomplishment for a kid of about 10 years old and the memory has stayed with me. It was on the Rio Ruidoso, in the upper canyon area. I had hooked a slimy earthworm I dug from the bank on my Eagle Claw #10 snelled hook, plopped it into a hole just below a rock forming a small eddy and suddenly felt that magical tugging that all fishermen get at the moment of a strike. I was able to land the fish, a nice 10-inch stocker rainbow. No one was with me to witness the event, but I couldn’t wait to tell my father, who had introduced me to fishing.
I relived some of that magic last week when two of my grandchildren who were visiting both managed to catch their first fish. Granted, it was a pay lake, but the experience was just as exciting as my first catch. Each caught two fish, all on their own, using spin-cast rods that tossed “Pistol Pete” flies smeared with gobs of garlic glitter “Power Bait” into the murky waters of the pond.
Our youngest grandson caught the first. To say he was excited is an extreme understatement. After we landed the trout, he literally ran around in seemingly endless circles on the bank of the pond yelling “I caught a fish, I caught a fish.” Our granddaughter caught the next two and commenced to hop up and down for what seemed like five minutes. She later gingerly held the trout while we took pictures, looking a bit concerned at first, then beaming with a smile.
We thought our grandson was going to be skunked in his quest to catch his second fish, but just as we were about to call it quits on the lake, he got a strike when he was reeling in his rod and landed a fat rainbow. He did it all on his own — from smearing “Power Bait” on the fly, to making a perfect cast where we had seen fish activity, to skillfully reeling it into shore by keeping the line tight and not losing the rainbow.
And as my granddaughter usually does with all animals (see previous blog), she immediately named her two fish. One was “Chunky” and the other was “Chunkier.” My grandson also named his “Jaws” and “Jaws Junior.”
Both grandchildren wanted to do a “catch and release” but the fishing pond did not allow us to release them back into that water. So we assured the two that we would find a suitable watercourse somewhere in the vicinity and release the four trout so they could swim happily for the rest of their lives, having learned their lesson never to try to eat a strange looking fly that smelled like garlic. We bagged up the fish with some water from the pond (only one of which still seemed to be alive) and set out to find a place to release them.
After about 20 miles of driving, we finally found an irrigated pond on the property of a church camp. No one was around, so we made a stealthy diversion onto the camp and slipped the trout into the pond. I don’t think any of them survived, but I’m sure the local racoons appreciated our gift.
My two other grandsons have worked hard to catch their first fish on several outings in the past few years but it hasn’t happened yet. I now know where to go to make that happen next time they visit us in New Mexico. I’m sure when they do they’ll be as excited as our other grandchildren were.
I also remember the first time my wife caught a fish on the upper Chama River in northern New Mexico. Her first response was a bit of a squeal when she realized something was tugging the line on her rod, then with some minor help from me managed to drag the nice-looking Rio Grande cutthroat onto the banks. She still enjoys going fishing and works very hard at it.
All of this got me to thinking about why it’s such an important rite of passage for children (and many adults) to catch their first fish.
There have been many stories written about fishing and in particular, catching your first fish. I searched on the internet and found several theories about why achieving this goal is so memorable.
One article was entitled “What Fishing Does To Your Brain.” Written by the father of two young boys, it had this bit of insight:
“Fishing captivates us because it provides two of the three things we need to be happy — something to work on and something to look forward to. What’s the third key to happiness? Someone to love. And for the angler, we’d be wise to find someone who loves us back, enough to care about and listen to our fishing stories.”
Well said. I hope everyone who has caught fish will take a moment to remember their first catch.
aero-cordero.com 