The tale of a fisherman
Tonight I will tell you what I have always called “The story of my big fish”. I would like to start this story by telling you that every word is true. I am not like some fishermen and I embellish the story.
Missouri, for the most part, is still a green state. It is a paradise for nature lovers. The vast forests are teeming with deer, turkeys, and other wildlife. It is a popular vacation spot during hunting season. Missouri is also home to some very large lakes and fishermen and boaters enjoy the many recreational facilities available. The Lake of the Ozarks (known to locals as “The Lake”) located in central Missouri is so large that it actually has more miles of shoreline than the entire state of California.
My story, however, does not take place at The Lake but at Table Rock Lake, located in southern Missouri in the Ozark Mountains.
In the early 1960s, my father began to have symptoms of a major heart condition. His doctor advised him that he needed to relax and find something that interested him. He decided that fishing was fun, relaxing, and inexpensive. So he bought a fishing rod, some lures, and a fishing license. The neighbors allowed him to fish in his ponds.
The following summer he had the bright idea that camping would be fun, relaxing, and affordable. With the Sears Roebuck catalog on one knee and the Montgomery Ward catalog on the other, he ordered a tent, sleeping bags, a camp stove, and other necessities for our budget vacation.
It’s time to go on vacation to camp. Everything, when packed, fits perfectly in the trunk of the car. We happily went out to visit my mother’s strange family in West Virginia.
The next summer, my father decided to buy a fishing boat and an outboard motor. He thought it would be cheap and relaxing to camp at Table Rock Lake. This monstrous lake has more than eight hundred miles of shoreline. The dam is located in Branson, Missouri. We camped at the most primitive camp he could find near Blue Eye, Missouri. Blue Eye is located on the Missouri-Arkansas border, about twenty-two miles south of Branson.
My mother and my sister, Peggy, are sleepyheads and go to bed at a “decent” hour and sleep a lot. I have never understood that concept. The bed is a great place to die. Other than that, I’ve never had much use for sleeping. Dad was always a night owl too. He was a large man, over six feet tall and very strong. Most people called him Red because of his red hair and ruddy complexion. He also had a heart that was giving up on him at a young age. I didn’t know him for a long time as a healthy person.
One night we sat alone by the campfire. My mother and sister were sleeping. It was peaceful to sit there, fight the mosquitoes and listen to the water lapping at the shore. Dad asked me if he wanted to go fishing. We could take the boat to the open sea. If we left the fire burning, we could use it as a marker to make sure we didn’t stray too far from camp.
We decided to turn off the engine and just drift. He sat in the back of the boat and I was in the front. We had been fishing for about thirty minutes when something grabbed my line.
“I have a dick!” I yelled.
“Roll it up,” he told me.
“I do not can!”
“Of course he can!” He shouted me. She was only about fifteen or sixteen years old and probably weighed around a hundred pounds.
He held the fishing pole with both hands and struggled to stay in the boat.
“I DO NOT CAN!”
“Give me that thing!” her tone was angry. He yanked the pole from my hands and immediately realized that he wouldn’t be able to reel in what was on the line.
He put his feet up on the sides of the boat and held on as we took a wild ride around the lake. Our “fish” did not take long to drag us to the dam, about twenty miles from our camp. We were traveling at a high rate of speed. There was no moon, just billions of stars.
We saw the lights from the dam and knew we were in trouble. If we didn’t start the outboard motor and reverse, we were going to crash very quickly. Dad dropped the fishing rod. He was tired, his heart was overloaded and he was short of breath. We had to start that engine. I tried, but my arms weren’t long enough to pull the starter rope. He had to. Gasping, he pulled on the rope. I couldn’t pull him hard enough. Try again. We both shoot, together. Any. Again! He finally powered up, flicked the stick into reverse and turned the engine to starboard. We just missed the dam. The wave we created nearly capsized our little boat.
Dad lay in the bottom of the boat trying to recover while I tried to find my way back to camp. I probably went around in circles because I couldn’t see anything. With the first light of dawn he seemed to feel better and he took over the helm of the boat. The sun was high in the sky when we got back to camp.
“Where have you been?” her mother demanded.
“Have Sue tell you about our big fish. I’m going to bed,” Dad told her.
We never went back for the fishing rod. Instead, we packed up and headed home.
I never saw my fish. I never knew exactly what had taken the bait on my line. I guess it was just “the big one that got away”.
©2008 Sue Fulton
