A Fish for Supper

Back when I was younger, ‘bout 19 or 20 I reckon, I took my little brother fishing. I'm 12 years older than my brother, so he was really my little brother. Not anymore, but that’s another story.

It was a Saturday, and I was finally giving in to take him fishing.He’d been pesterin’ me about it for a long time. I was not the fisherman I said I was. I mean, what was the harm of enhancing my skills a bit for the little guy? I told him I would teach him the art of catching a monster largemouth bass on a plastic worm, the kind of fish Uncle Jabe called a waterhorse. I was indeed a bit braggadocious, but what the heck.  

We piled into the old  '47 Chevy affectionately known as "Jezebel".  I don't know why we called her that, we just did, or why cars are female in gender. Anyway, Tragedy, my brother's dog, jumped in the back seat. So there we were, two guys and a dog going fishing on a beautiful spring day. What could be better? Right? Male bonding, I think they call it.

Well Tragedy, being a dog, did what most dogs would do. He put his front legs on the window ledge and stuck his head out the window. I mean he was really enjoying the wind blowing through his long wavy hair. He was sort of a Springer mix. Did I tell you about Jezebel? This '47 Chevy had a bunch of miles on it. The speedometer had gone around once and was up to 40,300 miles again before it broke. Course Daddy did not believe in automobile maintenance much, just checked the tires, water and oil levels, and drove ‘em. The old car was just about worn out. The shock absorbers were shot, and the old car really bounced up and down on the rough road. We hit a big bump in the road and ...Yep, you guessed it. Tragedy fell out.  I heard a yelp as he went out the window. I applied the brakes on that old car, and we slid to a stop. My brother ran to his dog a layin' by the side of the road.  He tried to pick up his dog. The dog bit him on the ear, and he  started bleeding. I got him calmed down and wrapped a bandana around his head to get the bleeding stopped. I told him his dog still loved him and only bit him because he had grabbed the dog where it was injured.

We finally made it to the pond to fish with wounded boy and dog. I rigged his rod and reel with a plastic worm. Before I could get my hook in the water he had hung a fish. Now a Zebco 202 is just one step up from a toy. Well, sir, that ole bass grabbed that plastic worm and inhaled it. I could hear that little Zebco reel screaming.  My little brother was trying to reel the fish in but “Mr. Fish “ wasn’t giving up easy. I think he had smelled the grease in the frying pan. I was afraid the fish would get away. I could tell he was a nice one by the way he walked on his tail across the water shaking his head trying to get shed of the hook.  I grabbed  the fish line and started to pull the fish in by hand.  The Zebco reel was done for.  I was standing right at the edge of the shallow water.  I stepped forward and got into the soft mud while grappling for the fish. When I tried to step away from the water my right foot came back but my right shoe stayed in the mud. Yep, I busted it right there in the mud. But I didn’t, and I repeat I didn’t, turn a loose of that fish line.  I might’ve been covered with mud when I got home, but we had us a nice 3 pound bass.

I got Mama to throw me a clean shirt and pants out the backdoor, and I changed in the well house. Little brother was in hog heaven.  Had to put the fish in the basket on his bicycle and was riding around the neighborhood showing it to everybody. Me, I knew I had to clean the fish. Around our house if you hooked it or shot it you cleaned it to eat it. By the time he got back from his ride with the fish I was ready. I had a butcher knife and a smaller knife and  dishpan full of water and ready for the fish.  There was an old table out back under a pecan tree where I always cleaned fish when I caught some.

I had no sooner started scaling the fish when the first cat showed up. We didn’t filet fish, because we didn’t want to waste any of the meat. Besides, Uncle Bill said that fish tasted better if it was cooked on the bone. As I was saying, the first cat showed up. It was our cat, Whymple.

Largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) is a freshwater gamefish
in the sunfish family a species of black bass native to North America.
It is also known by a variety of regional names.  

My brother had named the cat, too. Whymple climbed the tree and sat on a limb looking down on me cleaning the fish. As I continued to work, another cat showed up and joined Whymple in the tree. Then a third cat showed up. I was starting to gut the fish now. I was also getting a little uneasy about the way the cats were looking at the fish. And then, Big Boy came over. Big Boy was James Earl Swanger’s tomcat, and he weighed twenty-one pounds. And he climbed the tree too. It’s a wonder I didn’t cut a finger off watching them cats while cleaning that fish. The backbone on that fish was as big as my thumb, and I was having a hard time cutting through it, but when Big Boy jumped out of that tree onto me and the fish, the knife went right through that backbone like it was goin' through butter.. I grabbed the fish and ran for the house, and Big Boy grabbed the fish head and lit out across the back yard with all the other cats following him.

I fell face down inside the backdoor, dropped the fish, and had blood flowing from my forearms where Big Boy had scratched me.  I was tired and injured, but I had cleaned the fish for supper. And then, Mama yelled at me. “Son, you’re getting blood all over my clean floor, and you dropped the fish too."

I never took my brother fishing again. Actually, it was twenty years before I wet a hook again.