Don't Scare The Fish (From a Guest Commentator)

The spring air was warm on my face, a kind respite from the damp, cool wind that had accompanied us for most of our trip to Oklahoma. The sun gleamed in early morning gold as my Dad and I crunched the crumbs of rock beneath our feet treading up a long, gravel path to the stream. My Dad loved to take fishing trips and this spring my family went to a woodsy national park in Oklahoma called Beaver's Bend, our favorite vacation site. We approached a worn wooden bridge whose support tresses had grown grey and faded from sun and rain, and walked over the stream that raged angry beneath us. A bout of recent rain caused the water to surge against its banks, roaring against the limitations they created. "We'll try to find someplace more calm" my Dad said quietly in my ear as he crept across the creaky bridge, afraid of scaring the fish below. So we crunched more gravel and found a perfect spot upstream. The water was high and moving fast, but there were lots of nooks and crannies for fish to hide here, where it was a bit shallower.

My Dad cast my fishing rod for me, his strong arms moving in heroic motion and sending the bait farther than my seven year old muscles would ever be capable of. "Now we wait." My bare feet were chilled by the green water I stood in and I watched small six-legged bugs skitter on top of the water around my feet. After a few long minutes of holding an unmoving rod I cranked in the fishing line to discover an empty hook.

I placed a red, sticky salmon egg securely on the hook and handed my favorite hot-pink fishing pole to my Dad to cast, who instead returned it to me and lay a heavy hand on my shoulder. "Do you see that rock out there?" I nodded in reverence of the pervading lack of human noise around us. It was a large rock that demanded respect from the hurried water forced to move around it and created a pool of water exempt from the passionate surging of most of the stream. "I think if you can get your hook just behind that rock, there will certainly be a fish hiding from the moving water there."

I rolled up my blue jeans and began to wander slowly into the water, wetness creeping up into the cotton of my jeans as I walked deeper into the stream. Just a few more steps and I can manage this cast. Timidly, I steadied each foot before I moved the next and when I was willing to go no further, planted myself in the mud. I lifted my pink rod and prepared for the hardest, longest cast I could summon as determination scratched lines in my forehead. But nature doesn't like being controlled by man. As I rolled my shoulder to throw my hook, the water's icy arm reached around a bend and dragged me into white, bubbling rush to carry me away.

I was so surprised that I didn't yell. Just the moment his little girl was being washed downstream by the white water rush, my Dad turned around from the big, green tackle box. His eyes linked to mine in an iron chain and he leapt into the water, pushing away the powerful rush with superhuman strength. The stream fought his every step as it carried my head dangerously near every boulder in it its path. I reached out for his hand as I bounced in the waves and quickly felt a hard hand grip my arm from under the water pull me to the safety of the bank.

Once on the solid ground, I saw terror in his eyes for the first time as he enveloped me in strong arms and rocked methodically, adrenaline still surging through his veins. "I didn't know if would catch you" he said as tears snuck down his cheeks. But I was never afraid.