You have to be lucky.

It is the old argument; nature or nurture. Are true fishermen born or are they created? I have known both. I myself was born with a spoon in my mouth; not a silver one, more likely a Len Thompson #4, probably a five of diamonds. My Dad had me fishing as soon as I could walk. I was; pardon the pun “hooked”. But not all men and women are so lucky. Some were so deprived as children as not to be raised as piscators. (Pis`ca´tor n. A fisherman or angler) It has been my mission to convert some of these heathens, to bring some of the unwashed, the unholy into the inner circle of true anglers. To bring them to the light. But one must handle the unsaved with care. For if you leadeth them upon the waters of the Dead Sea (or dud sea) where the fish do not see fit to bite; you risk losing them as a convert.
Gerard was one of my fellow employees at the restaurant. He was young and enthusiastic. He came from a large family and I had known all his siblings who had cycled through the place over the years. I; being somewhat older than Gerard must have cut a more senior figure. A wise old veteran. A Yoda-like figure. He was as clay and I was the potter. I did not choose some easy venue for his first outing. I chose a lake I had found while researching gold mining in my father’s hometown of Mount Uniacke. The lake had appeared on several aerial photos I looked up in the science library. I found it on a map. “Any fish in there?” I asked my Dad one day. “Lots, I used to fish for them when I was floating log booms down the lake to the mill; there.” Dad said pointing to a foot shaped cove at the south end of the lake. “Looks pretty remote.” I said. “Batter fishing. We built a corduroy road back to it in the thirties” I studied the map and figured it a good seven mile hike. The only thing that worried me was a series of lateral lines with three vertical lines splaying out of each. Designed to look like lily pads the indicated a swamp. The road ran straight through it. “Bound to be fish. No one goes there.” Dad said reassuringly.
I planned the trip for late April, after exams. I thought it would offer a good chance of him getting his first fish. “You have had a deprived childhood. Depraved really. Your father never took you fishing! I should report him to child protective services!” Gerard’s father was in fact a fine man. A school teacher who went on to become school principal. ”Will we get fish?” Gerard asked wide eyed with anticipation. I tried to appear sage and inscrutable. “Ah well; there are no guarantees you know. Fishing is a sport of luck as well as skill. Even the best sportsmen are sometimes skunked.” I think I saw reverence in his eyes, but it could have been caused by the cigarette smoke in the break room, everyone smoked in those days. “Pack some garbage bags to keep your clothes and stuff dry. I had lent him a pack as he had none. How does one reach adolescence and not own a decent rucksack?
We left super early. The sun was still abed when we took our gear out of the trunk. It was a perfect day for a hike in the woods. When the sun rose on a clear sky the horizon was pink as a salmon. “I don’t like the look of that.” I said to Gerard, pointing to the horizon. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.” He answered cheerily. “Red sky at night is a sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning and the sailor takes warning.” I said sagely. The day stayed clear as we trekked our way along the trail. The old mine road was firm and good going being built virtually on the bedrock. When we turned off it the terrain began to change. What had appeared on the map started out as a broken line which indicated gravel road. This part was a dotted line which indicated a trail. The lily pads on the map soon became a full blown bog. Dead trees stuck up out of it. The place had strange echoes and one could see why swamps figure so prominently in horror movies. You could hear birds calling but never saw them. Every once in a while a great splash; just beyond your vision. There was no question of pursuing the splashes as stepping off the trail by so much as a foot meant sinking to your chest as we both soon found out. The old corduroy road; a road made by laying tree trunks across the roadbed had long since been claimed by the mire. Beavers had dammed streams and the water covered the old road a foot or more deep. What was left of the logs was slippery and rotten so they often broke underfoot and caused you to slip and slide. We were soon soaked.
Gerard was a trooper he pushed on with no complaint. In fact I began to have remorse for dragging so innocent a young man on what was looking like a fool’s errand. I began to think of my act as the wise veteran and was racked with self doubt. But still the lake was there and we were going to make it. Eventually the road became higher and drier. We stopped and changed pants and socks. “Use the garbage bags for the wet clothes.” I told Gerard. We made good time the rest of the way and arrived at the lake before lunch. Gerard was keen to fish but there was something I did not like in the wind that had picked up. Nearly all the new leaves were upside down; a sure sign of rain. And there was something in the way that loon was calling that made me think rain. “Let’s pitch the tent and put up some firewood first.” I said. “The sky is clear, not a cloud.” Gerard said chipper as a schoolboy. He was in fact a schoolboy. Truth be told so was I; being a university junior. Gerard stood staring at the lake; an idyllic scene, water so clean you could drink it. Loons were swimming and diving in the cove. Beavers were carrying alder limbs to and fro. I unpacked the tent and put it up by myself. It was a poor excuse for a tent. One I’d had since junior high. Patched with thread it leaked like a sieve. The skies darkened as I finished. Gerard was not as chipper as he approached. ”You were right it looks bad” he said; a little quaver in his voice. “There’s a saying about Mount Uniacke weather. If you don’t like it; wait fifteen minutes. It will change.” I offered. We stored the gear and began to gather firewood as the rain started. It came down in sheets. We put what little wood we had under a tarp and went into the tent. We put on our rain gear and opened the food. “How about a cold lunch?” I asked. “We’ll build a fire when the rain eases and have some fresh trout!” Gerard brightened. We ate and made our way out in the rain to fish. We used floats but found the rain was hitting so hard that you couldn’t even see them so we just took to casting. The wind unfortunately was in our faces so the casting was impossible. We retired to the tent.
I produced a deck of cards and we played cards for a few hours. The rain lashed the tent mercilessly and the walls began to flap in the wind. It was hard to hear yourself talk. Water was constantly seeping in and I used a towel to mop it up. “Make sure all your dry clothes are in a good garbage bag.” I told Gerard. I began to regain some of my confidence as a woodsman. We used sterno to cook the supper as the wind was too strong for a fire. The warm food hit the spot and we lay out on our sleeping bags. The early start and long hike made for a good sleeping pill. We were soon asleep.
I awoke with a start as peals of thunder rent the skies. The tent floor was wet and so were the sleeping bags. I mopped up and went out and tightened the guy lines. The lightening lit the sky steadily. “Right over head!” I yelled as I re-entered the tent. “No space between the thunder clap and the lightening. There would be little sleep now. The storm went on for hours. The lightening quit before dawn and the rain slackened to a steady heavy drizzle. I used the sterno to cook eggs. “Sorry the bacon is rubbery.” I said as I handed Gerard his plate. “Sorry about the weather too.” I added. “Just wait fifteen minutes it will change.” He added smiling. What a trooper I thought, “Let’s fish!” I said and grabbed my rod. I baited up and cast my line. The lake was calmer now and my bobber hits the water with a splash. The line dropped and tightened as the bait descended. The float slid across the surface as the weight of the bait pulled it directly over the line. But the bobber kept sliding across the surface. I raised my rod tip and yelled “FISH!” Gerard came running. I was into a good fish and the water boiled. When I finally landed him I put him in Gerard’s hands. We stood over it like it was the crown jewels. “Look at that! Did you ever see anything more beautiful?’” I could tell by his eyes he hadn’t. It was a symphony of color. Its’ back so green it was nearly black. Its’ upper sides green yet gold at the same time, smattered with those dots with the iridescent blue rings like inset semi precious stones. The belly creamy with two fins at the throat as white as alabaster and tipped with blood red. What a sight! Three quarters of a pound of animal fury. So electrifying as to make all this worth it. A pang of guilt hit me. “This should have been your fish.” I said as I lay it in the creel. “There really is a lot of luck involved.” I said to reassure him. Not that there isn’t skill. The way you cast, where you cast. How fast you retrieve. What lure to use, what line to use. There are a thousand factors. But I have seen expert fishers with ten thousand dollars worth of gear bested by a kid with a willow pole and a bare hook with a piece of bacon on it. Go figure.
“Luck is huge. Without it; nothing, nada, zilch. Two guys fish together and one guy gets them all, the other guy often gets nothing. Even with my regular fishing partners. Same gear same technique, different results,” Gerard looked at his line hanging slack in the water. “How do you change the luck?” he asked. “I don’t believe in rabbit’s feet, the rabbit had four of them and look how he finished up! No; you want to change the luck? Spray fly dope on the other guys lure when he’s not looking. Step on his reel accidentally of course! Break his rod tip off in the trunk. Budda boom budda Bing; his luck changes!” I said this last part in a very bad Italian accent. “Thanks Don Vito but I meant how do you change your luck?” He was still laughing. Good kid. “There is one secret to fishing. You can’t catch a fish if your line is not in the water so keep casting.”
He did but his luck didn’t improve. Mine did I got a couple more. As darkness fell I put the truth to him. We had planned another night but I knew we were running out of dry clothes and sterno. “We gotta make a call. Do we leave in the morning?” I asked. “I have one more set of dry clothes thanks to the garbage bags.” He said. “Told you! Well we’ll see hat morning brings.” The rain stopped sometime in the night. We slept like babies. The lake was like glass when we awoke. We put on our dry clothes and flaked the wet ones on some bushes. I scoured the shore for beaver wood, stripped of bark it dries faster. I smeared some of the remaining sterno on the soggy wood and lit it. “An old boy scout trick.” I said. “Really?” he asked incredulous. “Yes, as soon as the scoutmaster turns his back!” U said with a chuckle. I soon had a lovely fire going. Hot food and hot coffee further buoyed our spirits. We finished the trip and still no fish for Gerard. I felt I had failed him. We took staffs of beaver wood and made our way home.
A couple of weeks later I suggested another trip, this time to a few places I knew not far from the highway. Gerard gratefully accepted. That morning at the first pool we reached he landed a lovely half pounder. As beautiful as any I had seen. I showed him how to clean it said “You are now a member of the fishing fraternity.” I didn’t need to ask him how it felt it was written all over his face. “See, I got nothing, all luck!”That afternoon we drove down the highway until I came to a place I often catch fish. It is literally right on the highway. There was an old man standing there with a piece of bamboo with an old rod tip jammed into it. He had tied thirty feet of line to the tip. At his feet was a bucket full of fish. “How many can I keep?” he asked when I stopped. I looked at the bucket. “Not that many.” I said. “Damn I am going to give these away. I will be right back, watch my rod!” He vanished with a shambling gait. The water looked unusual like it had been stirred up. The old man quickly returned. “What’s the deal?” I asked. “Lands and forests was just here they dumped a whole tanker truck full of stock trout. They are confused and the cove is full of them. I get one every cast, can you spare some bait?” I obliged and Gerard began to cast. It was like magic he had one every cast. We tried every lure in my box and got fish on all but one. I even tried the old man’s rig, at his insistence and caught fish. We had a magical afternoon and Gerard learned a lot about setting the hook and fighting a fish. On the drive home I thought I would drive home the point I had been making. Our success had re-inflated my ego. “See what I told you, all luck.” He looked at me with a new look in his eyes not of a student but of a peer. “What luck, it was like shooting fish in a barrel, literally, all we had to do was cast.” He thought he had outwitted the old master. “Nah, I've been to that spot a hundred times and this is the most I ever caught. Showing up right after a hatchery truck, now that’s lucky!”