To Catch a Fish from a Rowboat
One of my first memories of fishing was with my Pawpaw at an Alabama catfish pond with an attached restaurant. Vivid greens from what must have been pine and cypress shaded us over brownish blue ponds sparkling in the sun. To my delight I pulled out a whiskered grey catfish from the murky water. We brought it to a door behind the kitchen. I lingered on and watched as the cook plunged through a nail and skinned it. I remember watching the fish take one more breath before it was dispatched. Minutes later a plate landed in front of me with two golden fried fillets.
As I look back, I see a grisliness to the details of this recollection, however, I remember nothing but delight as I devoured my prize. The memory remains a warm one of time spent with a grandparent I never really got to know and a formative lesson on where food comes from.
I grew up in New Mexico. Opportunities to fish were limited to adventures with my coastal cousins. However, it was formative. I was taught to clean fish, which necessitated using a knife. At the time this responsibility felt tantamount to the Lady of Lake bestowing Excalibur.
I was the youngest of that batch of cousins and that relegated me to consistent tag along status. Without water or parents who enjoyed the hobby I never had the consistent access and opportunity to develop the inclination to mount my own expeditions. That changed in college when I fell in love with rowing. The kind of rowing I experienced then didn’t include fishing, but it got me on the water. After university I got the bright idea to take rowing even further, and with some college teammates entered a race from New York to England.
During speaking engagements I give about our transatlantic racing experience, “Did you catch any fish?” is perhaps the third most popular question.
We did not. Not because we wouldn’t have, but because the chaos of four 23-year-olds planning to row across the ocean meant a few things were missed. This included fishing equipment. We won and got a Guinness Record for our rowing endeavor, so this minor failure didn’t bother us much, although in hind sight catching and eating fish would have been nice.
Years later a Bristol Bay captain I had met offered me a spot as a greenhorn on his crew. Over the four-week season we landed over 250,000 pounds of Alaskan sockeye in the gillnet. It was still tag along status, but professional tag along status, and the knowledge, that at least once in my life I had indeed been an actual fisherman.
Rowing’s remained my main activity. For the last 13 years I’ve had a sturdy 16-foot rowboat. I’ve cruised down the Mississippi River twice on this boat. I’ve given rowing tours of Seattle, camped, crabbed, cocktailed, worked out, picnicked, and birdwatched aboard, but for whatever reason, the boat’s obvious use as a fishing platform remained in my blind spot.
Then I met Jack at the boat ramp. Jack also had a rowboat. However, when he rowed he caught fish. After seeing a few coho in his Facebook feed I decided to ask Jack for a coffee and pick his brain. He chatted for an hour, handed me half a dozen books, and assured me that he didn’t know much.
Now, for the first time, I would mount my own fishing expedition. No longer would I remain in tag along status. This was my show. My friend’s dad gave me some surplus lines and lures and I bought a cheap rod. I taught myself a few knots, skimmed over one of the books, got overwhelmed with salacious words like flasher, mooching, and hoochie, and resolved that at some point I just needed to get my line wet, and my butt kicked.
I still love rowing, so my worst-case scenario wasn’t bad.
I soon found out it was a ‘pink’ year. This is a massive run of smaller leaner salmon that return biennially. Folks seem to have some strong feelings about their flavor but to me a fish was a fish, and I’ve yet to come across one that I didn’t like.
By the third expedition I was starting to wonder how much a line in the water was adding or subtracting to my enjoyment of rowing. At least I was in the right place. Fish were jumping and around me and dozens of people were catching fish, including kayaks that seemed to be as well-equipped as many of the motorboats. I was rowing around trolling, after several mile long pulls I’d reel in my rod to find it tangled or full of eel grass, and concluded that I was doing it wrong.
After watching the two anglers 100 yards away casting into the sea and pulling up three salmon in five minutes, I hauled in my trolling rig with disgust. If the hook wasn’t free the fish could not bite. I unhooked the diver, flasher, and hoochie and installed a ‘Buzz Bomb.’ This was a last-minute purchase at the recommendation of the clerk as I wandered glassy eyed through the aisles of the outdoor store of what felt like a million to choose from. The small sparkly diamond shape looked like a gimmick, but the simpler rig promised to at least keep the hook free.
I began to cast. Flinging the rod in frustration until I realized a few deep breaths and a bit of finesse would get the lure further.
The tug of the line sent a wave of adrenalin down my body. Suddenly it was only me and that fish in this world. I reeled like hell, keeping lines tight and rod tip up. A diminutive sea monster approached and I reached for the net. Guiding the fish with the rod in my other hand, I led its nose into the net.
I thanked it before dispatching it with a blade to the gills. I’d done this to tens of thousands of fish that season in Bristol Bay, but out here on my own rowboat of my own volition it seemed more intimate and sacred than the hydraulic assisted harvest.
Satiation was fleeting. The blood was up. I wanted my limit. When the fourth dropped in my boat an hour later I felt like Genghis Kahn. Blood and slime covered the deck. I stroked back to the dock with the pride of winning a race, past motorboats still fishing.
More victories followed in the coming weeks. Enough to invite my friends to join. When the pinks ran dry, I tried the trolling again. I’d learned the correct ratio of line between the diver, flasher, and hoochie. This is from the two, four, six rule that I came across. Two feet between a flasher and a hoochie, four feet for spoons, and six feet for bait. I put two feet between my diver and the flasher. Then I installed a rod holder on my boat and this combo keeps my lines from getting fouled so easy.
My season ended with over 30 pounds of fish in my freezer, not including a few I gifted away.
The pride I feel in this modest accomplishment sounds silly to me. Folks have been fishing in rowboat for millennia. I suppose the explanation is that I never got into rowing to catch fish. I’ve kept rowing just because I love rowing, but to discover something so fun, after 25 years of loving rowing, feels like an unexpected cherry on top.
I got skunked the last few times I went out, but I’m not too worried about it. Next season is never too far off.
