Little Joe's Big Fish

Something from the tackle box:

       Adam and Eve had a son.  Then Eve said, “I’ll name him Cain because I got him with the help of the Lord.”  Later she had another son and named him Abel.

       Able became a sheep farmer, but Cain farmed the land.  One day, Cain gave part of his harvest to the Lord, and Abel also gave an offering to the Lord.  He killed the first-born lamb from one of his sheep and gave the Lord the best parts of it.  The Lord was pleased with Abel and his offering, but not with Cain and his offering.  This made Cain so angry that he could not hide his feelings.

       The Lord said to Cain: “What’s wrong with you?  Why do you have such an angry look on your face?  If you had done the right thing, you would be smiling.  But you did the wrong thing, and now sin is waiting to attack you like a lion.  Sin wants to destroy you, but don’t let it!”  (Genesis 4:1-7 CEV)

      I am the oldest of three siblings who are all pretty close together in age.  I was born in October of 1956, my sister a year and a half later in April of 58, and my brother a year and a half after that, in October of 1959, just three years younger than me to the month. 

       I would like to be able to report to you that my brother, sister and I always got along well as young children growing up together out in the countryside, that we laughed and played together in constant mutual love and admiration, binding ourselves together as lifelong allies, bound by the ties of both blood and kindred spirit, to face whatever a wicked and hate filled world could throw at us in it’s demonic attempt to rend our bonds of familial love.  But that would be a bald-faced lie. 

       It’s not that we never laughed and played together.  Why, that might almost be as likely to happen as not on any given day, at least for short spurts of time.  We never woke up and set our hearts on actually killing one another in the fashion of Cain, at least not that I can now recall.  But I can remember plenty of times when I felt though I would not have minded watching some horrible accident befall one or both of my siblings, and a few times when I would have positively welcomed such an unfortunate event.  Please remember that I was a child and regrettable sibling rivalry has been a constant in the human condition since chapter 4 in the bible. 

       The usual way it would play out between my brother, sister and I was that, sometime during the day, two of us would join forces to get the goat of the third one until the desired effect was achieved.  My little brother was the easiest to get to cry, because he was the littlest.  My sister was the easiest to get to scream like a girl, because she was a girl.  And I was the easiest to get to turn red-faced with impotent fury, because I was the oldest, and the slowest.  As the senior sibling I thought that deference and respect from my bother and sister were my birthright.  They did not.  And for many years they could easily outrun me once I blew my top, magnifying their victory, as my anger would burn even brighter for the fuel of their laughter beating its hasty retreat out of my reach. 

       The saving grace, perhaps for all of us, was that I knew that within hours the alliance could, and often would, shift and I would be part of the gang of two, causing my little brother to cry like a baby or my little sister to scream like a girl, getting my revenge on both of them in turn with the help of the other.  

       Now, these facts about my childhood don’t really have any direct bearing on the fishing story I am going to relate to you, other than to let you know that, while we could get along, and occasionally did get along when it suited us, benevolent goodwill was not the default emotional setting between my brother, sister and I for most of our childhood.  So, on with the story.

       For much of my youth both of my parents worked as teachers at the local high school, which meant that we all had a lot of free time during summer break.  Now, my father liked to use some of his summer break to go and do some pike and walleye fishing in northern Ontario.  Quite often he would go in company with his teaching colleague and friend, Mel Kivela. 

       Mel and Dad had a lot in common.  Apart from both being industrial arts teachers at Maple Valley Junior-Senior High School, they had each grown up as children of Finnish immigrants in the hardy out-of-doors culture of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which is a special kind of bond to share, just ask any Yooper. 

       Neither one of them would have ever referred to themselves as being “avid sportsmen,” but cold-water lake fishing was in their blood, genetically and culturally.  And so they would go to Longlac, Ontario after northern pike and walleye for a week or so, once or twice a summer, sometimes by themselves, sometimes taking other friends and colleagues along, and sometimes… taking their families!

       Yes!  About once every other summer or so, starting when I was around ten years old, Mom, my siblings and I, along with an occasional aunt, uncle or grandparent, all got to go fishing in Northern Ontario with Dad.  For a young lad like I was, that was the stuff of dreams.  Wilderness adventure, par excellence! 

       Now, we all expected to catch lots of fish on these trips, and we always did.  Back in the 1960’s the Ontario game laws were truly generous in regard to catch and possession limits on most fish, even for out-of-province guests.  There were far, far more fish than people in and around those thousands of lakes and it wasn’t an issue back then.  There was a limit and you were likely to be pulled over and your coolers checked at the border when you left Canada, but unless you had more than one ice-chest full of fish per person in the vehicle, you were probably OK. 

a nice day's catch

       So numbers would not be the determining factor in who would be hailed as the best fisher-kid when we all went north with Pop, both within the family and within the circle of other people, locals and visitors, around the fishing camp.  We would all catch our share of fish.  Everyone did.  But who would catch the biggest fish – of that day – of that week?  The answer to those questions really mattered in our minds.  That is what would make a difference in our Adventurer standing within the community!  

       Here’s the set-up:  We stayed at a fishing camp, which was a commercial operation that rented its cabins, boats, and various other services to visiting fishermen.  I remember there being about five or six cabins, each of which had a rustic but functional kitchen/dinning area with running water and electricity from the camp generator, and two bedrooms with about four bunks each.   A couple of community outhouses served their traditional function for the entire camp.  The whole place could accommodate about forty plus guests.  

       You could fish or rest at fishing camp, whatever you liked.  If you wanted to fish, you could fish, morning, noon and night.  If you wanted to stay in the cabin, talk and play cards most of the time, you could do that too.  Mom spent the bulk of her time in the cabin.  I never let a boat leave shore without me. 

       The only other building was the camp office and fish cleaning station.  The only reason it was called the office was because there was a phone on the wall with a pencil and pad of paper hanging from it by a string.   It was also where the camp owner could be found, along with a couple of other locals who would clean, filet and pack your fish in ice so fast and cheaply that everyone used their services even if they were good at cleaning fish themselves. 

       The office was also where these same locals would post the stats on the camp’s biggest fish of the day, of the week, and of the season, on the blackboard.  Separate columns for walleye, pike and lake trout.  Each line would record the length and weight of the leading fish, along with the name of the lucky fisherman in each time frame, for all to admire. 

       My dad told me that there had been a few occasions when his name had been up on that board in the biggest catch of the day category for both walleye and pike.  What we didn’t learn until much later was that it usually happened when he and Mel were the only guests at the camp who had gone out fishing that day.  In any event, to my ten-year-old mind, to see your name on that blackboard was the sign and seal of fishing greatness.  It was an accolade truly to be desired. 

       Although the fishing camp was on a lake, and boats were kept there at the camp, most of the serious fishermen and women didn’t fish the lake the camp was on unless bad weather threatened.  The camp also kept boats on half a dozen or so other lakes within an hour’s drive and hike, which was often ten minutes driving and fifty minutes hiking.  Most of these lakes were big and clean, and without a single building or any sign of human industry at all to be seen other than the camp’s boat chained to a tree where the trail met the water.  It really was wilderness.  And boy, there was a lot of fish! 

       We would troll those big beautiful lakes using wooden minnows and spoon lures, and I learned a lot about fishing.  I learned that when we trolled past grasses and weed beds we were quite likely to hook a northern pike or two.  When we went past a bunch of barely submerged rocks you could expect to be hooking up with some walleye. 

 

norhtern pike

      I liked the pike best, because they thrashed around and fought a lot harder than the walleye did.  I had my favorite blue and silver Rapala minnow lure with two sets of treble hooks, a bit shorter than the standard three-hook rig. I caught a lot of fish with that one lure, all pike, and I thought we should stick to the grassy banks and the weed beds where I could use it to its best advantage. 

walleye

       But, of course, the adults liked the walleye better, because it really is a better eating fish, and it’s what you want to show off with by serving to company when you got back home.  In any event, when you made a long circuit of just about any of the lakes the camp kept boats on you would hit both weed cover and rock cover in turn, so we all got the kind of fish we wanted.  I don’t ever remember going to any of the lakes for a morning or an afternoon and coming back to camp without at least a couple of nice fish for each person in the boat. 

       It was satisfying and it was fun, - but none of our names were going up on the board.  And least of all mine.  Although I caught my fair share, I never had the biggest fish of the day just from our boat, let alone for the camp, and no one from our boat ever had the biggest fish of the day for the camp in any species category.  That is, until the last afternoon of our last day for that trip up. 

       My mom, who did go out fishing with us at least a couple of times on each trip, had decided she would make our last outing before packing up.  Which meant that we would be fishing one of the lakes that wouldn’t be quite so hard to reach as some others were.  Dad picked one called Chrystal Lake.  It could be seen from the road and was only a short walk from where you parked to where the boats were chained up.  For this reason it got fished a little heavier than some of the remoter lakes we accessed from our base.  The camp kept a couple of boats there, and you might reasonably expect to see other fishermen on the lake at the same time that you were fishing, which rarely happened on some of those lakes.  It was a baby’s lake in my opinion. 

       Chrystal Lake was also not considered a good pike lake at all, which chagrined me, but walleyes could be caught as there were plenty of the rock formations they liked.  It was also a lake where you had a good chance to hook up with a lake trout, which is a critter that I had never even seen, let alone landed.  If I was to get my name up on the board on our last day in Canada for the summer, that category would be as good as any I guessed.  So we got there and put out for our last afternoon of fishing, the whole family, my mom and my dad, my brother and my sister, and me, in one boat.

       We fished all afternoon, and it felt like a long afternoon because the fishing was not all that good.  Nothing like I had come to expect.  As evening approached and mom started hinting that we should head back to camp for supper, we only had four fish on the stringer, none of which would get any of our names on the calk-board at camp.  I had caught one, but it was the smallest of the four.  Even though mine was the smallest, at least I had a fish.  My little brother Joe had been skunked so far.  In fact, about a half hour before we turned our boat towards the landing, he had handed his rod to my dad and had curled up in the bow of the boat for a nap, which hadn’t bothered my sister, my dad or I, but was probably the biggest reason my mom had suggested that we call it quits for the day. 

       And so we turned in that direction.  One last cut across the lake, one last chance to catch a fish, before we got in the car and left with our memories and our cooler of fish. 

       The last run into the landing was as unproductive as most of the afternoon had been.  As dad cut the engine on approaching the landing and we all reeled our lines in and stowed our rods, dad, mom, sis and I.  Joe was still semi-napping in the front of the boat.  When Joe had given up on the fishing earlier my dad had just propped his rod up in the back corner of the boat, lure still trailing out behind us.  Five lures are better than four after all.  So now he handed it back up to my little brother with instructions to “crank ‘er in Joe.  Were done for the day.” 

       Joe yawned – and started to reel in his line.  It had played out there quite a ways and would take some cranking.  And you already know what’s going to happen next, don’t you? 

       All of a sudden his rod tip jerked in three quick pulses before bowing over in a deep arc as line started to scream out of his reel.

       “Hey, - I got one!”  he shouted with a big smile on his face, as we all sat there with our rods stowed away.

       “Good for you!” beamed mom.

       “Yeah Joe!” shouted my little sister.

       “It’s a big one.  Let him run for a while and tire out a bit before you start to reel him in,” advised my smiling father.  “If he comes towards us take up the slack.  I’ll have the net ready.” 

       I just sat there in disbelief, and actually hoped that the fish would get away.

       But it didn’t.  Little brother managed to eventually crank that fish in close enough for my father to net into the boat.  And it was spectacular, the biggest walleye that I’ve personally ever seen to this very day.  I was mortified. 

       As we were getting our fish and gear out of the boat another couple of men from our camp were just arriving to do some evening fishing.  They took one look at that fish and said, “Holy Mackerel! Someone’s getting their name up on the board tonight!  Who caught it?  YOU!   The littlest always catches the biggest fish I guess!  Where’d you get him?  Right there!  Well Frank, forget the boat.  I guess we ought to just fish from shore right here tonight. Ha, ha, ha!” 

       My brother just beamed. - I did not.      

       It was the same back at the camp, especially with the locals working in the fish cleaning office.  “Holy Mackerel!  Are you sure you don’t want us to save this one whole to be mounted?  No!  Well then, let’s measure and weigh it before we clean it.  This one is going up on the board!  -  Oh my!” –

       The owner walked over to the chalkboard.  First he erased the current biggest fish of the day in the walleye column, set down the fish’s stats, followed by the name, Joe Jarvie.  Then he erased the entry in the biggest walleye of the week slot, and wrote in Joe Jarvie again.  And then – he erased the info that was in the biggest walleye of the season line, put in the new fish numbers, and in all caps printed out JOE JARVIE – 7 YEARS OLD! 

       It was a long ride back to Michigan the next day.  I don’t remember speaking one single word to my little brother the whole way home.

       But I do remember him whispering something to me with mom and dad right there in the car to keep him safe.  Which was wise, because if I was ever going to play the part of Cain it might have been the very moment that he whispered across the back seat to me,  “It’s OK big brother, - I may have caught the biggest fish, - but you sure did catch the littlest one!”  

 Something to take home in your creel:

       I do not know if my little brother’s entry on that fishing camp’s wall of fame was able to stand up for the whole season or not.  I may have, or it may not have.  I did not ask, and no one ever told me.  But all these years later I like to think that it did stand up.  Which is funny, because I don’t think that Joe ever really cared one way or the other. 

       Joe didn’t really care about fishing back then, and he still doesn’t. Joe doesn’t fish.  Joe has never even owned a fishing rod as an adult that I know of, unless he kept the one he was given by my dad to go fishing with in Canada back when he we were kids, the same one he caught that walleye on.  I imagine that it was sold at a yard sale years ago now, or just discarded into the trash.  I wish I had it now, just for the memory it holds, but Joe doesn’t. 

        Joe’s idea of outdoors recreation is to work on his Upper Peninsula hay farm whenever he’s not busy being the band director at Lake Michigan Catholic High School.  He and his wife Julie are two of the people that I love the most in my life.  Although I admit that list has grown larger as I’ve matured.  He asks me to take time off from my church duties and be a chaperone for his trips with the LMCCHS band to Orlando Florida and Disney World every other February.  I believe I’ve been on eleven of those trips with his High School band now, and I am anxiously looking forward to the few more that may possibly happen before Joe retires in about five years.  I love every minute I get to spend with my younger brother. 

       I wonder if Cain would have ever come around to that way of thinking about his brother Able – if he had only been able to grit his teeth through his anger for just one more long trip home?

Pastor Eric & Mike at Prayer

Something from the tackle box:

       The Lord said to Eliphaz, “What my servant Job has said about me is true, but I am angry at you and your two friends for not telling the truth.  So I want you to go over to Job and offer seven bulls and seven goats on an altar as a sacrifice to please me.  After this, Job will pray, and I will agree not to punish you for your foolishness.”  Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar obeyed the Lord, and he answered Job’s prayer.  After Job had prayed for his three friends, the Lord made Job twice as rich as he had been before.  (Job 42:7-10  CEV)

       First of all, I ask you to pray for everyone.  Ask God to help and bless them all, and tell God how thankful you are for each of them.  (1Timothy 2:1 CEV)

       Not every fishing story that I have to tell is my own fishing story.  Over the years I’ve heard and read fishing stories that have taught me a lot about life, both natural life and spiritual life, stories which have become dear to my heart because they have both entertained me and helped me grow.  Of course, I can’t repeat stories I’ve gotten from Norman Maclean, Robert Traver,or Patrick McMannus without infringing on copyright laws and getting myself in a lot of hot water.  You’ll have to read their fishing stories for yourself, which I highly recommend that you do. 

       But some fishing stories that I’ve gotten from other folks I can tell with impunity because they were given to me by friends who expressly told me that I could retell the story, - or there was at least an implied understanding that I could retell it, - or I just assumed that I could retell it because I knew full well that it had never been set down on paper, let alone copyrighted. 

      The two stories I’m telling you today are of this kind.  – er – I mean, the first kind of re-tellable story I mentioned.  My friend, colleague, teacher and mentor in pastoral ministry, the Reverend Eric Lison, is another professional sky-pilot who has enjoyed fishing over his lifetime, and he has expressly told me that I can use these stories about fishing – and prayer – that come from his life.  So, thank you brother Eric. 

neither big nor piney

      Just before Eric came to the small town in Michigan to pastor the Congregational church where I was a member back in the 90s, he had spent a good number of years leading the Community Congregational Church of Big Piney, Wyoming, - which is neither big nor piney.  With a population of 454 souls and an elevation of 6798 feet above sea level, Big Piney sits on a high plain in the mountain country of western Wyoming near the waters of the Green River. 

       The town was established back in the late 1800’s by cattle ranchers who where moving a herd of a thousand head through the area on their way to somewhere else, and got stuck there by the weather for the whole winter.  They figured that this must be where God wanted them and so they set up a ranch and a town.  As good a reason as any, I suppose.

       Because of its elevation and exposed position on those high grasslands, the government put a weather station at Big Piney in 1930.  That very year Big Piney registered the coldest year-round average temperature of any town in the United States, earning it the nickname of Ice-box of the Nation. 

       These are not great tidbits to put in your Chamber of Commerce brochure aimed at attracting new residents and businesses to the area.  But when the Community Congregational Church of Big Piney asked Eric to come out there and be their pastor, my future friend felt that it was something God wanted him to do.  And so he took his wife and his two young sons from the Pittsburg, Pennsylvania area all the way out to the wilds of western Wyoming, where they would stay for quite a few years. 

the Congregational Church in Big Piney a long time ago

       You’ve heard it said that, in life, timing is everything.  Well I don’t believe that it’s everything, but it certainly is something.  And the timing of Pastor Eric’s move to Big Piney was problematic.  They arrived in October, right on the cusp of the long, hard and brutally cold winter months, without having the opportunity to enjoy the brief splendor of a high country spring and summer as a buffer to what was coming.  There was nothing to do for it but to settle into the parsonage and face the facts of high country winter life in community with those who already lived there and knew what it was all about. 

       It was tough.  And yes, spit can freeze into ice before it hits the ground.  But the good people out there, and in places like that, go to church anyway most of the time, the weather not withstanding.  In the average rancher based community’s spiritual outlook on life, if you don’t go to church because the weather is bad, you’re completely missing the whole point of going to church in the first place. 

       That first winter the established community took the new pastor and his family under their collective wing and tried to make it as bearable as possible for them.  One of the people in that community was Mike.  Mike was a church deacon - and he was a fisherman. 

       Mike explained to my friend Eric that almost every winter the area would experience what could just barely be called a “January thaw.”  Not that much would actually thaw out, mind you, but the daytime temperatures would just break the barrier and climb into the thirties for about a week or so on average. 

       Mike extolled this brief respite from the normally sub-zero days of winter as a wonderful chance to go out to the Green River and fish for the trout that would perk up with the brief temperature rise.  Obviously, you had to dress warmly, but it would be bearable, and even a lot of fun if you got into a nice bunch of fish.  He offered to outfit the new pastor with some of his own tackle and take him to a good fishable spot on the Green to show him the ropes just as soon as the conditions were right, and my friend Eric accepted the invitation.    

       With the arrangements all made, the thaw finally came, and Pastor Eric and Mike drove out to the Green River to fish.  It was a sunny and beautiful day, and every bit as wonderful a break from the horrible winter cold that Mike had said it would be, or – at least it would be for Eric that day.  They were casting from shore with metal spoon lures and the fish were biting, or – at least they were for Eric. 

       My friend caught the first, and the second, and the third trout.  And then he caught the fourth, - and the fifth, - and the sixth trout, - at which point he’d reached his limit.  They were all nice fish, about three to four pounds each.  Now Mike is right there, trying to be as graceful as he can to the new pastor, but every fisherman who has been getting skunked while his fishing buddy limits out, standing right next to him, has to know how badly Mike’s psyche was twisting up by this time. 

       “Mike, I’ve got my limit.  Should I stop and just watch while you fish for a while?” asked Eric. 

       “No. - Keep fishing,” Mike replied.  “If you catch any more we’ll just put  ‘em with any I get.  It looks like I’m not going to catch my limit today anyway.” 

       So they fished on, - and my friend Eric caught the seventh fish, - and then the eighth fish of the day, - each as nice as the first six. 

       “OK, that’s enough for one day.  It’s time to head back home,” said the dejected yet graceful organizer of the outing.  He was genuinely happy that his new pastor was having such a wonderful time catching fish, but it was getting pretty embarrassing, especially since he had placed himself in the role of resident expert for Eric’s introduction to Wyoming trout fishing. 

       Once they had stowed their tackle and the fish, and then climbed into the vehicle for the drive home, Mike asked, with as much of a smile on his face as he could muster, “OK pastor, - what’s your secret?  You were obviously doing something that I wasn’t doing to catch all those fish, while I got nothing.”

       Now Eric had just been fishing.  That’s all.  As far as he could tell there was no obvious reason that he had caught all eight of the trout that were taken that day while Mike had caught none.  BUT, being the man – and the pastor – that he is, Eric was not going to pass up this opportunity to have some fun with his new deacon – and just maybe teach him a little theological lesson in Christian living to boot.

       Now understand that Eric is just making this up as he goes along at this point when he says to Mike, “Well, – I was praying while I fished. - Maybe that was it.”

       “NO, that wasn’t it because I was praying too!  There’s got to be something else you were doing!” 

       “Yeah, - but Mike, - you probably weren’t praying the same way I was praying! – Each time I cast my lure into the water I would say this same prayer, over and over again, - with all my heart, - ‘O Lord, - please let MIKE catch a fish. - O Lord, please let MIKE catch a fish.’” 

       “Oh. – So, - each time you cast your lure, - you prayed, - ‘O Lord, - please let MIKE catch a fish.’”

       “That’s right.”

       “And after praying, ‘O Lord, - please let MIKE catch a fish,’ over and over again, - YOU would eventually catch another fish, - again and again.  That’s how it worked?” 

       “That’s how it worked today!  Isn’t it amazing!” 

       Now, even though Eric is obviously baiting Mike here with this fishy line, I hope you can see the big theological lesson that my friend was also trying to teach his parishioner.  Gracious and self-less prayer for the sake of others is far more pleasing to God than prayer concerned only with one’s own self and welfare. Not that we should never petition God for our own needs, if they are genuine needs, but intercession for the needs of others is far nobler, far more righteous, far more Christ-like, than petitions for self are, and they are often more effective in surprisingly abundant ways.  Amazingly, intercessory prayer is often likely to result in blessings all around, for all concerned, the pray-er and the prayed-for, together.

       Look at the example of Job in the bible.  Much of the 42 chapters in the book of Job present the title character vehemently talking both with and about God, concerning his OWN wretched circumstances.  We see Job defending himself, - complaining, pleading, wailing and arguing with his friends and with God, if not for some redress, at least for some answers as to why God has allowed so much misery to suddenly befall HIS blameless life.  And the only answer that Job ever gets to all of his self-centered haranguing, as just and true as God himself admitted that it all was, is an eloquent, “Who are you to question Me about anything,” speech from God.  That’s it!  That’s all he gets up to this point in the story. 

       But afterwards, Job is asked to pray on behalf of his three old friends, who never prayed for Job’s welfare without injecting their self-righteous certainty that all of Job’s problems were really Job’s own fault, which they were wrong about.   And when Job prays that his three friends be forgiven for expressing all of their firmly held beliefs, which they had just learned were untrue and offensive to God, not only are they returned to God’s good graces, - but JOB is also restored to twice as much prosperity as he had enjoyed before his sufferings began. 

       Maybe God intended to do that all along.  I don’t know.  But it’s interesting that it didn’t happen until Job had prayed for his friends who hadn’t been through anything comparable to what he had just gone through. 

       The scriptures don’t teach that it will always work that way, and it often doesn’t.  Still, I’ve learned that when I pray that I catch fish, it doesn’t really seem to make any significant difference one way or the other in the number of fish I catch that day for having made that prayer.  The average is the same whether I’ve prayed to catch fish or haven’t prayed to catch fish.  I know, because I keep track of that sort of thing. 

       I do pray when I fish.  In fact, I pray almost constantly when I fish.  But it’s more in the nature of just enjoying God’s company, which I can’t help but continuously notice whenever I’m out on the water, than it is in the nature of any kind of verbal supplication. 

       I’ve also learned that when I’ve been thinking about, praying over, and doing good things for others in life, for their sake and not for mine, doing so as a servant of God, - in the pattern of Christ, - and in His Spirit, - my life just seems to get blessed in all kinds of wonderful ways, large and small, over and above its normal blessed state.  If it isn’t good fishing, it will be something else. 

       Or maybe, in being that way, I’m just put in the spiritual frame of mind to notice more of the blessings that have always all been there for me ever more fully, and it just seems like I’m being blessed more.  Who can tell?  You go figure it out with your own life, by trying it for yourself, and you will see how it works.

       That is the big spiritual truth that lies at the very core of the half-serious game that pastor Eric is playing with his friend’s head in their silly little exchange about prayer being used as a fishing technique.  So, back to the fishing story: 

       Even though this light hearted exchange about what constitutes effective fishing prayer has all been good natured joshing between the two new friends, the pastor wonders if the parishioner might have learned anything at all from it.  Eric’s hope is that when next they go fishing Mike will make a great show of loudly praying, “O Lord, - please let ERIC catch a fish,” before he makes his first cast.  It will be meant in jest of course, but it will show that the concept has taken hold, that the knowledge that praying for others is more acceptable to God, and more likely to bear fruit into the world than prayers for self, has at least gained some foothold in Mike’s heart.  One can hope.

       The hope is encouraged the next time they go out fishing together.  Mike questions Eric about the prayer again.  “OK, - let me get this straight. – You prayed, ‘O Lord, - please let MIKE catch a fish,’ and each time you ended up catching a fish.” 

       “That’s right.” 

        “OK, I’ve got it.”

       As Mike winds up to make his first cast of the day he shouts to the sky, “O Lord, - Please let MIKE catch a fish!” 

       He hadn’t learned a thing.

Something to take home in your creel:

       Prayer is a tricky subject for me.  Even though I’m a man of faith, a professional even, the vagaries of just how prayer works from one occasion to the next baffle and even disturb me.  I know it works.  I’ve seen it work.  I have been told that it always works.  And I pray every single day in confident faith that it will work.  But I also know full well that it doesn’t always, or even often, work the way that I hope it will work. 

       From my admittedly limited point of view it sometimes seems to have made not one wit of difference one way or the other that I’ve prayed at all, for myself or for others, even though I accept that it has made a difference from God’s unlimited point of view.  Still, it is a frustratingly holy practice for me to pray and be satisfied with, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven,’ when I can’t always see it working out that way.

       My friend Eric has another story about prayer and fishing on the Green River that takes place the following year, in October.  The really cold winter weather has come early this year, as it sometimes does in all of its freezing cruelty in Big Piney, but the time for the salmon run has come and one can stand some pretty cold temperatures for the sake of those wonderful fish if the wind is dead calm and the sun is out.  And they needed to be, because on this sunny October day in Big Piney the temperature display on the bank sign says that it’s thirty five degrees below zero.  Which is cold for October, even in Big Piney.

A sunny but icy day on the Green River

       Eric has gone out to fish by himself this time.  The water will be open down by the dam, forty five miles away, and he figures he’ll have the spot all to himself because of the temperature.  It is bitter cold and the banks are frozen icy when he gets there, but the wind is still, the sun is out, and the salmon fishing is very good. 

       About the time that Eric needs to be heading back home he’s got 5 nice salmon, only one fish away from his limit.  And so he prays, - “O God, - please let me catch just one more fish, - so that I can go home with my limit. - After all, - Mike isn’t here to pray for today.”

       Well, God has a sense of humor too.  Right after the prayer Eric casts his lure out into the icy river and, low and behold, he gets a strike.  A nice one!  He yanks back on his rod to set the hook, but the fish runs in a direction he isn’t expecting it to run and he has to shift his body to compensate.  -  And that’s when he looses his footing on the icy bank and slides all the way down into the Green River, getting completely soaked from the belt down. 

       Amazingly, Eric manages to keep the fish on his line.   In a few minutes he lands his last fish, limiting out.  His prayer has been answered.  He steps out of the water and his pants immediately freeze solid.  He stows the fish and his tackle.  At thirty-five degrees below zero it will take a long time for the car heater to make a difference in his comfort level on that forty-five mile ride home.  His prayer has been answered all right, but not in the way he had hoped for.  God can be funny like that. 

       Eric’s next prayer of the day was, “O, God, - please let my car start after sitting outside in these temperatures all this time,” and he still counts himself blessed that God saw fit to answer that one without any more object lessons attached. 

If You Say So Roscoe

 

Something from the tackle box:

       Some soldiers overheard David talking, so they told Saul what David had said.  Saul sent for David, and David came.  “Your Majesty,” he said, “this Philistine shouldn’t turn us into cowards.  I’ll go out and fight him myself!”

       “You don’t have a chance against him,” Saul replied.  “You’re only a boy, and he’s been a soldier all his life.”

       But David told him, “Your Majesty, I take care of my father’s sheep.  And when one of them is dragged off by a lion or a bear, I go after it and beat the wild animal until it lets the sheep go.  If the wild animal turns and attacks me, I grab it by the throat and kill it.  Sir, I have killed lions and bears that way, and I can kill this worthless Philistine.  He shouldn’t have made fun of the army of the living God!  The Lord has rescued me from the claws of lions and bears, and he will keep me safe from the hands of this Philistine.”

       “All right,” Saul answered, “go ahead and fight him.  And I hope the Lord will help you.” 

       Saul had his own military clothes and armor put on David, and he gave David a bronze helmet to wear.  David strapped on a sword and tried to walk around, but he was not used to wearing those things.

       “I can’t move with all this stuff on,” David said, “I’m just not used to it.”

       David took off the armor and picked up his shepherd’s stick.  He went out to a stream and picked up five smooth rocks and put them in his leather bag.  Then with his sling in hand, he went straight towards Goliath.  (1 Samuel 17:31-40 CEV)

      When I was eleven years old one of the biggest joys of my pre-teen life was joining up with Boy Scout troop number 177 in the town just two miles down the road from my home.  It was a small troop in a small town, so I knew all the boys in it before I had even joined.  We were all in school together, not more than a few grades apart from the youngest to the oldest in the troop. 

       There were only a dozen or so boys in the whole troop, but we were still divided into two patrols.  I was one of six boys in the Wolf patrol, which was all the younger boys aged eleven, twelve or thirteen, so I knew all of them quite well.  In fact, all but one of them where going into the same sixth grade class with me that fall.  Beside myself, there was Charlie, Roscoe, Jack, and Doug, and Doug’s younger brother Jim.  Doug was the boy one year ahead of the other five of us in school and he was our patrol leader, having already been in the scouts for a couple of years by that time. 

       Now, I liked all the boys in my patrol, even Doug who, being the oldest, thought that he could boss us around as the patrol leader, which he couldn’t, especially his younger brother Jim who gave his brother as good as he got from him. 

       Anyway, we were all pretty much normal boys from a small town who all liked to go camping and hiking, and maybe even earn an occasional merit badge now and then if it didn’t interfere with the fun parts of being a Scout.  The only one who might have been considered a little bit different than the rest of us was Roscoe, and the differences would have been measured as slight by anyone, nothing earth shattering, a variance of a few degrees at most. 

       None of our families had a whole lot of money, but Roscoe’s family had the least of us all.  The rest of us didn’t have a lot of nice stuff but we at least had some good clothes to wear to school.  Roscoe didn’t really.  None of us had a complete Scout uniform but most of us had at least a piece of a scout uniform, a shirt, a hat, a neckerchief, or something.  Roscoe didn’t have anything.  None of us had hopes of going through school at the top of our class academically, but we all figured the chances of finishing in the top half of our class were good, - except Roscoe.  Roscoe had a very hard time with schoolwork, and actually would be falling back a year from the rest of us in the near future. 

       But, like I said, that was OK.  His tennis shoes were only a little bit older and shabbier than the ones the rest of us wore to school or scout meetings and we all liked Roscoe.  In fact, everyone I knew liked Roscoe quite a lot.  Even the teacher who was going to hold him back at the end of the next school year liked Roscoe.  You see, Roscoe was one of those kids who always had a smile on his face, a friendly greeting, and a good story to tell you.  Now you might get a bit tired of his continuous stream of stories after awhile, but I never met anyone who didn’t like Roscoe. 

       I only mention that you could get tired of Roscoe’s stories because, when you listened to him, it soon became apparent to any reasonably minded person that Roscoe really liked to exaggerate.  Which was no great sin in my upbringing.  I had a grandfather who was a master storyteller.  His personal motto was, “any story worth telling is worth embellishing.”  I myself am not now, nor ever have been, above adding an inch or two to the size of a fish that I’ve almost caught, so Roscoe’s proclivity was no matter for shunning his company by any means.  But you do have to understand however, that Roscoe told genuine whoppers as far as any of us could tell. 

       Most of the tall tales Roscoe told had to do with the hunting, fishing, trapping or gathering that added food to his family’s larder.  His family depended on that kind of outdoor hunting and gathering activity for a lot of their nutrition, and there was no doubt that they all spent a lot of time at it.  But still, the stories Roscoe told were always truly amazing.  Like the pickup truck bed filled to the top with morel mushrooms in one afternoon by he and his four siblings this past spring.  Or the thirty-pound catfish he caught with a safety pin and a ball of kite string tied to a stick.  Or the pheasant he had brought down with a stone launched from his slingshot.  Or the most amazing; the twelve point buck he dropped dead with a shot to the eye from his pellet rifle at age eight.         

       They were all good stories and Roscoe told them all very well, but at eleven years old I already knew that this kind of stuff didn’t really happen.  And even when it did occasionally happen, it didn’t happen more than once for any one person in a lifetime.  But to hear Roscoe tell it, he could hardly go out of his back door without setting a state fish and game record of some kind.  That was Roscoe.  Anyway, back to Scout troop 177 and the activities of the Wolf patrol. 

the old scout hall, now boarded up

       One day our patrol leader Doug decided that we were going to help him earn his fishing merit badge by participating in a fishing expedition that he would organize.  It didn’t take much to talk the rest of us into that.  Even Doug’s younger brother Jim was agreeable.  It sounded like fun.  Just the kind of activity we liked to do as boy scouts.  And it would be easy to organize as well, as our scout hall was located right on the south bank of the town’s rather large mill pond created by the dam at the gristmill just a couple of hundred yards down the Thornapple River from our meeting place.  In fact, the Scout Hall driveway was also the access to the public boat launch site. 

       The plan was that we would all gather at the scout hall two hours before our next monthly scout meeting with our fishing rods in hand.  Doug would then pass out different fishing lures or baits to each of us so that he could take a survey of which types of lures or baits worked best for these particular waters and report those findings back to his fishing merit badge councilor, per the fishing merit badge requirements.         

       To the last man we were all game for the expedition, - with one caveat.  Roscoe informed us that, while Doug could pass out all the bait and lures for trial use that he wanted to, he would be fishing with his own bait, because he already knew how to catch the biggest fish that old mill pond held in its murky depths, huge fish as long as your arm, and he saw no good reason to fool around doing otherwise. 

       Well, OK Roscoe, if you say so. 

On the afternoon the great Wolf Patrol fishing expedition rolled around all of us showed up at the appointed hour with tackle in tow.  I actually had one of the nicer rigs there, a five foot long Zebco fiberglass rod and spin-casting reel loaded up with factory installed ten pound test monofilament fishing line.  It was the rod and reel my dad had set me up with the first time he took me walleye and pike fishing in Canada with him two years earlier.  It would do the job nicely. 

       While mine was probably the newest and cleanest rig there, the other boys were pretty much similarly set up with a fiberglass or older steel bait-casting rod, a working reel of some sort that held plenty of line, along with bobbers, sinkers, swivel snaps and Eagle Claw snelled fishing hooks.  All of us except for Roscoe that is.  Roscoe showed up carrying an old twelve foot long cane pole over one shoulder and a coffee can with the lid tightly sealed down tucked under his other arm. 

       Once we got organized about which section of the millpond bank each of us would fish from Doug passed out the bait.  We each got one artificial lure and one sample of live bait, each different from all the others.  We were to fish with one for an hour then switch to the other for the second hour before our troop meeting started.  We were to keep track of the species and size of any fish caught with each lure or bait for Doug’s report.  Well and good, except of course, Roscoe had brought his own bait, which he wasn’t sharing with or even showing to anybody else. 

      I got an old rooster tail spinner and a dozen crickets in a little cardboard box.  I wasn’t very optimistic.  That spinner was basically a trout lure and I knew as well as anybody that there weren’t any trout in the millpond.  It might catch something though.  I had a little more hope for the crickets but, to be honest, I had never fished with crickets before and I wasn’t too sure just how you were supposed to rig them up on a hook.  Anyway, I reckoned that I could get that figured out and catch one or two of the bluegills or bass that I knew did live in the millpond with those crickets. 

       As we spread out along the bank I took the section right directly in front of the scout hall while the rest of the boys lined up to my left, close enough to one another to have conversation, except for Roscoe, who went off to my right about a couple dozen paces or so and set up shop by himself with his long cane pole and can of secret bait. 

       We were soon all having a lot of fun, but not a whole lot of fish were being caught.  Whoever had gotten the night crawlers had managed to catch a couple of smallish bluegills but the rest of us were pretty much fishing for the exercise.  I was surprised to see that the tiny fish would actually follow my flashing spinner bait through the water as I reeled it in each time, but nothing even came close to attacking it.  I could hardly wait for the first hour to finish so I could switch to the crickets. 

       As I chanced a glance over in Roscoe’s direction I could see him reclined on the grass with his fingers locked behind his head, one knee up and his other leg crossed over that knee, the butt of his long cane pole wedged in the ground under an armpit and the length stretching out over the mill pond propped up by his crossed legs.  No bobber, just black line going down deep into the water.  He seemed to be very relaxed about this whole experiment.

       I finally got around to fishing with the crickets Doug had allotted me.  I was disappointed to find out that the little bluegills in the millpond mostly just ripped them apart and ate them, one section at a time, without ever swallowing a big enough piece to get the hook in their mouth.  Oh well, at least I had the fun of watching my bobber dance around on top of the water while they feasted. 

       As the appointed time for our troop meeting got close the older boys from the eagle patrol started showing up, along with the scoutmaster and a couple other adult volunteers.  With the audience of older scouts making jests about our meager catch, and the adults chuckling as well, Doug was a little bit chagrined that his fishing expedition hadn’t produced greater fruits.  I actually managed to hook and land a four-inch long bluegill while everyone was there watching, which I thought might help as it brought the grand tally for the patrol outing up to six fish.  Sure, none of them were over five inches long, but six fish is six fish.  - It did not help.

       Then we heard Roscoe yell, “I’ve got a bite!” 

       We turned and looked.  Sure enough, Roscoe was not taking it easy napping on the grass any more.  He was up with feet spread out, the butt of his pole in one hand and the other hand three feet further up doing its best to keep the whole rig from pulling him into the muddy bottom of the millpond.  We all knew this was no bluegill.  That old cane pole was bent over, and it was bent over good. 

       Our much happier patrol leader yelled over, “Do you want me to try and net him for you?” 

      “Stay back!” yelled Roscoe, “I know what I’m doing!”

       And he did!  Roscoe let that fish tire out for quite a while, and then worked his way back up the hill next to the scout hall until that huge catfish slid out of the water and lay on the grass right where Roscoe had so recently been relaxing with his arms behind his head. 

       “Stay back!” Roscoe barked again, as he put his pole down and ran to pick that catfish up so that we could all admire his catch from a vertical point of view.

       “Way to go!  That’s a great fish, Roscoe.  What did you catch him on?” asked Doug.

       “If I told you that, my Dad would blister by behind!” said Roscoe with a smile.

      “But I need to fill in that information for my report!”

       “Nope!” came the firm reply, as Roscoe’s smile grew into a huge grin.  “Sorry I’m going to have to miss the meeting, guys.  But if we’re going to eat this fish tonight I’ve got to go home and get him cleaned before Mom starts to cook something else for dinner.  See you all later.”  And with that, Roscoe picked up his can of secret bait, and his cane pole, and his catfish, and left, while we all just stood there plumb amazed.

      Now, I’m not saying that Roscoe’s catfish was the biggest freshwater fish I’ve ever watched being caught.  In years to come I would see bigger fish come out of the water many times, occasionally on the end of my own fishing line, but that catfish was the biggest thing I’ve ever seen hauled out of the old millpond in my hometown.     

       And, yes - it was - every bit as long - as Roscoe’s arm. 

Something to take home in your creel:

      I like to listen to the stories that people tell about the things they have done in life.  And I love a good story, be it fact or fancy. 

       Now, I’m not gullible.  I take everything that anybody tells me, about any adventure they’ve had, with a grain of salt.  We all like to sound interesting when we tell a story, and so we are almost all prone to exaggerate a bit, if for no other reason than to make it all worth listening to.  Sometimes we do it without even realizing that we’re doing it. 

      Unless someone else who is not present is being disparaged or hurt by the way a story is unfolding, I do my best keep out of it and let the story stand as the teller sees fit to relate it.  Even when I know for a fact that a story is being stretched far beyond more than just a little bit, I try to smile, keep my opinion to myself, and let it be told the way it’s being told.

       I’m not sure what old King Saul thought when he first heard young David talking about killing lions and bears as a boy, choking them to death with his bare hands.  He probably thought it was a bunch of horse hockey.  I know that I would have thought that, if I’d been the one listening to it.  But then, regardless of whether or not he had ever even killed a chipmunk before, David went out and showed everyone that he did know how to kill a very big, well armed and trained warrior using the working tools of a shepherd as weapons. 

       So, there you have it.  Some people, like Saul, ended up hating David for making good on his bragging, but the wise ended up loving him for it, and they have re-told the story over and over again.   

       After I graduated from high school I did not see or hear from Roscoe Blake again for the next forty years.  But I did run into him just this last summer.  The church that I serve as pastor hired a asphalt company from my old home town to pave its new parking lot and I learned through the grapevine that Roscoe might well be on the crew that did the job as he was a long time employee of that firm.  I was hoping so.

       Sure enough, when the trucks and rollers arrived I spotted Roscoe in the gang doing what asphalt layers do.  We had both changed a lot but I still recognized him right off.  I waited until he took his lunch break and went over to re-introduce myself to him.  He seemed to be as happy to see me as I was to see him. 

       We talked for a little while about family and old friends and I finally got around to asking him, “Do you still like to hunt and fish as much as you did when we were kids?”

       Roscoe’s smile lit up very brightly and he said, “Let me show you something.”  He got out his cell phone and brought up a picture of himself kneeling behind the head of a monster whitetail holding on to a rack of antlers that was truly, truly impressive.  More tines than I cared to start counting.

       “That’s the one I got just last fall!  It made the top ten for the northeast region of the United States measured on the Boone and Crockett scale!”

       I handed the phone back to him and said, “That is one very nice buck, Roscoe.  But please don’t tell me that you shot him through the eye with your air rifle.”

       Roscoe threw his head back in a huge laugh.  And then he looked me strait in the eye and said, “No. – The only time I ever did something like that, - I was just eight years old.”