Nineteen Inches

He’d come out at ten in the morning. It had taken him a while to get over to the boat – it was about an hour drive from home. He would have preferred to leave earlier, but there were things to do on Wednesday mornings. As soon as he was done, though, he threw two rods into the back of the pickup and took off.
The boat was already in the water. It wasn’t big, about the same size as those cheap green metal dinghies you could buy at Wal-Mart, but his was silver and looked nicer, he thought. He’d named it “Indefatigable” to make it sound bigger. Little 20 hp Honda engine on the back. Ten feet long. Just perfect for his purposes. ‘Course, he thought, if I hook a marlin or a tuna in this thing, I’m fish-food. Hook’s a little small, though.
He was going for flounder. He’d always had a lot of fun with flounder – funny fish, they’d fight like nothing else their size.
He walked over to the pier and pulled up the minnow trap that had been put out the night before. The chicken neck was gone, and there were about three dozen fat happy minnows in the trap. He leaned over and filled the plastic bucket about half full of salt water. Then he tipped the trap over and spilled about twenty or so into the bucket and threw the rest of the minnows back into the creek. Then he put the lid on the bucket and put it in the bottom of the boat.
He walked over to the shed and pulled out the gas can and checked it to make sure it was full. It was. He picked up the little tool box and made sure the wrenches and extra sparkplugs were in it, and took both out to the boat. He walked to the truck, got the rods and tackle-box, picked up his hat, and dropped those into the boat as well.
He then jogged up to the house. He opened the garage door and went in that way. He grabbed two Dr. Peppers and two bottled waters from the fridge, the leftover chicken sandwiches, and some salt and vinegar potato chips. No one else liked salt and vinegar, so they were always in abundant supply. Dr. Peppers weren’t all the time, though.
He threw everything into the cooler and went back out to the boat. He climbed down inside after he untied the stern, and then he tilted the engine back into the water, primed it, and gave the cord a tug. The quiet Honda engine chugged to life, and he smiled as the engine coughed out grayish smoke. Quietest engine he’d ever heard. Even the 75 and 100 hp engines were quiet compared to their counterparts. He left the engine on idle, and reached for the paddle. “Oh, shoot, where’s the paddle…” he asked no one in particular, then scrambled out of the boat and grabbed it off the top of the well where it was laying. He grabbed the net too, since he figured he might need it. It was unlikely that he’d catch any crabs today, though.
He ran back down to the boat, threw the paddle into it, jumped inside, untied the bow line from its cleat, and pushed the boat away from the pier. As soon as the bow was pointed out into the creek, he gave it some gas, and, going slowly so as not to make a wake, headed out.
He watched everything go by as he had many times before. “Nice boat, Dick,” he said as he passed Dick’s pier across the creek from his grandparents. An egret was standing in the mud by Miss Barbara’s. He startled a couple mallards that were swimming out of one of the inlets and they went right over him, quacking their disgust. He passed the really old boat of to the west side that he’d never seen in the water, still sitting in its lift. The crab-fisherman was sitting on a bench by his pier, repairing a crab-pot that some motor-boat had mangled. The really long pier on the east side had a blue heron sitting on it. He stuck his neck out like a chicken’s and nodded as the boat motored past. He went by Bill and Karen’s and saw the water coming out of the pipe from the soft-crab tanks, and he saw what was left of Uncle Bill’s pier. The he passed by the spit that they took the little people to when they went swimming. He came up to the huge channel marker with the “DO NOT WAKE” sign off to his left, watching the osprey watching him. As soon as he was past the marker, he opened the Honda to full throttle.
“Oh, I love summer.”
He motored northeast for about twenty minutes. Then, as he came by some of the little sandbar-islands, he cut the engine and drifted, and then, balancing with one hand, he grabbed the anchor with the other and swung it over the side. The tide was going out, but he would stay in place. It was about eight feet deep where he was, according to the anchor-line.
He readjusted his hat, and grabbed the black rod first. He’d tied off the leader to the line and connected the weights the night before. Then he took the lid off the plastic bucket to get the minnows. He stuck his hand into the bucket and caught one of the minnows swimming around in it. Slippery creatures, he thought, as he pinched one of them between his thumb and forefinger, and with the other hand, reached down into the bottom of the boat and carefully grasped the leader. He took the top-most hook, carefully grabbed it, taking care not to stick himself with the barbs on the other side, and hooked it into the minnow. He did that twice for each line.
When he’d gotten the boat, he bought about two feet of PVC pipe, cut it in half, and wired each foot of pipe upright to the side of the boat to hold the rods. He picked up the black rod, wound it up so the little steel ball was at the tip of the rod, leaned it behind him, then swung it out in front, depressing the lever at the same time. The line whizzed out, and dropped into the bay about thirty feet away, sinking straight to the bottom. He put the black rod into its pipe, then picked up the yellow rod and threw it out to the other side, then put it in its pipe. The rod wasn’t really yellow; it had a yellowish-cork grip and a gold-yellow spool system, so he called it the yellow rod. It was his favorite. Cost him $119 from Bass Pro.
He started whistling as he opened up the tackle box and pulled out the Hemingway book on fishing. It wasn’t an actual book that Hemingway had written, but a collection of articles and parts of stories about fishing. His favorite was the broadbill swordfish fight from Islands in the Stream. He usually brought a book out – sometimes Hemingway, sometimes Zane Grey, sometimes a sports book (David Halberstam was his favorite sports author), or history, or sometimes he brought a magazine or two. He liked to read about cars while he was fishing. Two of his most favorite things in the world – old cars and saltwater fishing. He sat himself in the bow of the boat where he could see both lines from where he was reading, and opened the book.
He was up to the part where Roger was helping David out of the seat and onto the stern to try to keep the line from running out when he noticed the yellow rod. It moved. Slowly he closed the book and put his hand of the rod. Something was nibbling a minnow eight feet down and thirty feet away. Very carefully but not too slowly, he lifted the rod out of the pipe. Yes, there was most certainly a fish down there. Crabs don’t nibble like this. This was more of a chomping feeling than the playful tugging that crabs do. The fish stopped eating for a second, he thought, but then it was back. He had both hands on the rod now.
As fast as he could, he jerked the rod backwards. Then he felt the thrashing. He’d hooked whatever was down there, and it did not like having a hook in its mouth. “Whoa, I’ve got a whale!” he said as the fish started fighting him. He always said that when he hooked something. It sounded funny and made people laugh. He let the fish fight for a few moments. Wear him down a little. He didn’t let him fight too long, though. The thrill in fishing was in the fight. The fish started swimming toward the boat, and as it did, he reeled in the line. Pull back, wind up and lower, pull back, wind up and lower. He was bringing the fish to the surface.
Then, the fish appeared. Flounder, big one too. Maybe big enough. He had to be 17 ½” otherwise he’d have to throw him back. “C’mon fish,” he said. “Don’t throw the hook.” Sometimes fisherman wouldn’t say such things, thinking they’d jinx themselves by saying something they didn’t want to happen. But he didn’t believe in such things.
He’d gotten the fish to the boat. It had turned away and tried to swim out to the bay but the tension of the line had turned him back toward the boat. As he swam toward it, he yanked on the rod hard and lifted the flounder clear out of the water and into the bottom of the boat. “Oh, yeah. At least eighteen,” he said. He grabbed the leader, making sure not to stick himself with the free hook, and placed the flounder on the bench, pressing it down with his free hand. Even though the fish was flapping around, he was able to measure. Nineteen. Ooh, big fish. Good dinner tonight. He looked at his watch; he was hungry.
It was 1:40.
With a sigh, he picked up his hat and his books. He had to go otherwise he’d be late to class. He had a nauseated feeling, and it was cold and raining outside.