Kids & Parenting

The Humbled Fisherman

by John Custer
10/27/20
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The Humbled Fisherman

“Get in the car, girls.  We’re goin fishin.”

We lived five blocks from Lake Erie in Fairport Harbor.  We hadn’t lived there long, and I was just learning to fish.  Thus, I was very self conscious around experienced fishermen.

Let me give some background to this story.  Working at a funeral home gave me many opportunities to take short trips with my daughters.  We placed a list on the refrigerator with my daughters' names in sequence.  When I took one daughter on a trip, I would cross her name off and it was the next one’s turn.  

You may ask, “What exciting places does a funeral director take a six-year old?”  Well, how about a crematory, a cemetery, the Eye Bank or a funeral home in another town.  That might not sound exciting to you, but each trip included a stop at an ice cream shop.  That made every trip exciting for them (and me).

I enjoyed listening to everything they wanted to talk about.  They also enjoyed the one-on-one time.

Let’s get back to the “dock” incident.  When we parked the car, we walked about two blocks further to the end of the dock.  I noticed that there were two retirees with their lines in the water, waiting for a perch to bite their baited lines.  

I asked them as casually as I could, “Any luck today?”  “Nope.  They’re not biting today,” one of them replied.

It didn’t take long to get my line in the water with the extra help that accompanied me.  

While I waited, my girls acquainted themselves with all the equipment that I brought along.  One of the items was a chain-stringer fastened to a six-foot extension.  The extension was needed because the dock was about 4-5 feet above the water.

The rig that I used had two hooks.  The hope was that if a fish cleaned one hook, I had yet another one for him to try.

It wasn’t long ‘till I saw the line jerk.  Obviously I had a bite.  I reeled it in and had a pleasant surprise.  I had two perch, one on each hook, and one was a “Jumbo Perch.”  That is what they refer to as a really giant-sized perch.

By this time I got the attention of the two retirees whose lines were still inactive.  I tried to act like this happens to me all the time.  I took the two perch off the line and put them on the stringer, and tossed it into the water.

What happened next was devastating.  Unbeknownst to me, my “helpers,” in familiarizing themselves with my equipment, had disconnected the stringer from the extension.

When I tossed the fish into the water, they could have gone in several directions, but they chose to swim right past the retirees with the stringer in tow.  Now the old men looked at me and started laughing.  

What could I do but laugh too?  I was so humiliated!

There was no ice-cream on that trip and there was no fish for dinner either.

A lesson that I learned from this incident is to keep an eye on your kids when you go fishing.

Spending time with my daughters has paid off immeasurably in the subsequent years.  It not only included fishing, but also biking, walking, vacations and camping.  My daughters became very close to me because I spent time with them.  It is one of the “right things” that I did.  Time spent with them was time well spent!  

Non-fiction