The Fish Never Had a Chance By Mike and Hannah Freeman

 

The Fish Never Had a Chance

The bow of the ferry slaps the crest of each wave as the boat knives through the open water. . The dads of our group or tribe gather around an inside bar to share a drink while our daughters run excitedly around the deck. We are on our way to our favorite camping trip at Camp Fox on Catalina Island for a long weekend adventure of hiking, kayaking, fishing and roasting marshmallows under the brilliant stars.

Sipping my beer, I listen as the conversation turns to everyone’s excitement to bond with their daughters over hours spent fishing off the pier. I look over at the piles of luggage and notice to my dismay the abundance of fishing poles and tackle boxes. Initially, they hadn’t registered. I am far from a fisherman as I have little interest in a sport in which victory results in cleaning out entrails. We’ll be fine, I think as I bring my glass to my lips again. There are plenty of other things to do with Hannah.

We dock and unload our bags in the weathered plywood huts we will call home for the next few days. Immediately, the other dads in my tribe grab their fishing gear and their daughters and head out to the pier jutting out over the water. 

I’m left standing alone in the hut with my daughter. The silence holds for a beat before she looks at me expectantly and asks, wide-eyed, “Are we going fishing too?” 

Damn.

“Yes!” I quickly ad lib, hiding my panic behind bluster as I scramble to improvise my next move. “We start, of course, by finding a fishing pole.” 

We set out for the pier, my daughter trotting excitedly beside me, oblivious to the chaos unfolding behind my Adventure Dad veneer. 

Where do I find a fishIng pole? I ask myself as Hannah beams with blithe anticipation.  On this island there are no fishing pole stores. I doubt there's even a fish sandwich in this camp. What am I going to do?

“Let’s walk along the beach and look for one,” I say to Hannah to buy time and hopefully come up with a miracle plan. Panic-driven thoughts machine gun their way into my brain:  Maybe I can distract her and look for shells; maybe we can spot a whale or some porpoises swimming by; maybe a dead fish will wash up on shore; oh dear God, let something happen.

We walk along the beach, hand in hand, looking for something…. anything. After several quiet minutes the miracle happens. A bamboo pole roughly seven feet long lies on the seaweed along the shore. I pick it up and show it to Hannah.

“Here we are! This one’s perfect!” I announce with false courage. I pull out my Swiss Army knife with a great flourish and hollow out two small holes in the skinnier end of the bamboo pole — a channel for the fishing line.. Hannah is exuberant; Dad is taking us fishing!

We walk back to the pier where the other dads and daughters’ poles are dangling dolefully over the water. Despondency permeates the pungent ocean air. So far, Mother Nature has failed to produce the anticipated shining core memories of a glorious fishing trip that bonds father and daughter for life. The fish are not biting and the daughters are getting impatient.

I move from pair to pair, asking each of the dads if anyone has some spare fishing line. Glad to be doing something useful, one of the dads snips about 25 feet of line from his spool and hands it to us. Another dad volunteers some weights, and a third chips in with a spare hook. I quickly assemble a Tom Sawyer-esque fishing pole, and we are ready to go. Hannah is now the only girl on the pier excited about fishing.

Now we are only missing one crucial component: bait. Continuing our improvisational streak, we remember the single-portion box of Cheerios still in Hannah’s backpack from that morning’s breakfast. Even the most professional-grade lures aren’t yielding any results, so I’m privately skeptical at best; but at this point, we have nothing to lose, so I slip a Cheerio onto the cheap hook with a shrug. Hannah throws the line and baited hook over the edge of the pier while hanging onto the bamboo pole. The other dads give me a quizzical look, but I don't care: I am fishing with my daughter now! MacGyver Dad saves the day!

Quiet settles over the dock once more — growing resignation from the other girls, and unwavering enthusiasm from my daughter. I think she is the only one who isn’t utterly shocked when a sharp tug threatens to yank the pole from her grip. She yelps excitedly and I scramble to help her bring the line in while the other dads gape at us in total befuddlement. Unaware of the gravity of her words, one of the other daughters turns to her father and says sweetly, “Daddy, she caught one.” Her dad’s wide eyes narrow a bit as he continues watching our improbable victory.

I grab the fish, unhook it, and (with Hannah's gracious permission) throw it back into the ocean. I do not want to clean fish guts this evening, and blessedly, neither does she. Hannah re-strings a Cheerio on the hook, wraps the spare line around her hand, and casts the line back into the water. Silence settles again over the pier, but the air thrums with a tension that hadn’t been there a moment before. Whatever happens next, I can rest comfortably in the knowledge that I have defended my honor as a father and defied all odds to produce the mythical core fishing memory, even as it eluded every other, better-prepared father beside us. My work here is done, I think, certain that the experience has peaked. Time for a beer.

My self-satisfied reverie is shattered when Hannah lets out another whooping cheer. She has another fish! I don’t know who was more shocked by this: me, the other dads, or the fish. As she tugs the line up one tiny arm length at a time, I take in the astonished looks on the faces of all the dads around us. I quickly grab our prize and remove the hook from its lip. Before I throw it back in the ocean, I check and make sure it's not the same fish caught twice. It's not.

“Daddy, she caught another fish!” the same girl from earlier says, her sweetness starting to sour as Hannah’s success proves not to be contagious. Her dad’s eyes narrow further as he fiddles with his high-end lure.

People inch closer to Hannah as she sends another Cheerio-laden hook into the water. A few minutes pass uneventfully. That’s enough fishing for me, I think. We seem to be hogging all the magic of the experience, and I can sense the other dads’ growing desire to nab a single fish just so they can be done with it. 

A fellow father approaches us, his chipper demeanor from before  slumping further into despondence with each forlorn minute. He asks to temporarily trade his brand new fishing pole for Hannah’s, straining to present the offer as a favor he’s giving us instead of the other way around. Before I can say a word in response, my daughter hoists her bamboo pole high into the air. There is yet another fish dangling from the end of the line. 

Stunned, exasperated murmurs echo down the pier. I throw our third trophy back into the water almost apologetically. My sense of triumph competes with commiseration for the other dads as they and their daughters remain just feet away from us, inexplicably fishless. So far, the score is Hannah three and the rest of the world zero.

“Daddy, she's catching all the fish!” a growing chorus of girls complain. A few of the dads lower their heads. I think I hear some soft cursing under their breath as they try to puzzle out the hidden strategic genius of our driftwood stick and breakfast cereal configuration. . One of the dads comes up to me and practically pleads,” I will give you 20 bucks if you let us use the pole until we catch a fish.” Another dad, overhearing the offer, chimes in,” Hell, I'll give you 30 bucks for the pole!” The auction is on.

My greedy daddy side starts to emerge. Maybe I can bribe Hannah with a few ice cream cones, get a beer and still have money left over. But the dollar signs in my vision melt away when Hannah looks at me and asks, “Can I please keep fishing?”

“Yes, of course,” I quickly say as I bury my greedy daddy side somewhere in my back pocket.  The other dad in my tribe walks back to his daughter, dejected but understanding my position.

Once again the hook at the end of the magical bamboo fishing pole held in my daughters hand goes into the water. The hook makes its familiar journey back over the pier and into the water. The anticipation that ripples through the crowd fishing around my daughter is undeniable this time. They are hopeful that proximity to Hannah’s golden Cheerio will provide them with at least one fish that will allow them to go home with honor. No such luck. I am just as incredulous as the rest of our audience as my daughter’s luck holds. While the rest of the dock gets not so much as a nibble, as the afternoon progresses, Hannah brings in a truly absurd seven fish in total. 

The peal of the dinner bell from our campsite reaches us from further inland, and last-minute desperation prompts a resurgence in interest in buying us out of our magic bamboo stick. The bidding war resumes. My greedy daddy side reappears. Dads are getting desperate and are convinced that I have the answer. Hannah settles the deal by saying, ”Daddy, I can't wait to go fishing again tomorrow!”

Though I hide it, I’m just as disappointed as the throng of dejected dads.. We all leave the pier and go to have dinner. Afterwards, there is a brief round of Bat-O-Matic followed by a campfire featuring scrumptious chocolate marshmallow gram cracker sandwiches. The dads are talking about Hannah's day fishing as we get ready to go to sleep in our hut. As we settle in, fathers and daughters alike are abuzz in their bunks rehashing Hannah’s implausible success at the pier. One of the dads asks me where exactly I found the bamboo pole on the beach. I get the sense he would have preferred precise coordinates or for me to draw him a very detailed map. He and his daughter want to head out in the early morning and scour the beach for their own lucky fishing pole.

As I lay back, I’m puzzling over the day too. What are the odds of this happening? I ask myself over and over. Whatever they are, calculating them is beyond my ability, and I’m just grateful for the experience — greedy daddy be damned!

The next morning, one of the dads in our tribe announces that he is taking some of the girls fishing in a small boat and asks if Hannah wants to come along with her magic fishing pole. I encourage her to go, but I try to manage her expectations of a miracle happening two days in a row. The small boat drifts out to deeper water, and I stand on the beach to watch what happens, confident that whatever magic is in that pole has evaporated.

I noticed that the dads and daughters that are just starting to fish off the pier take note of Hannah out in the boat.  It is evident they are hoping that the fish will now bite on their fishing lines since Hannah is far away.

All the way from the shore, I can hear when Hannah lets out a delighted shriek. The other girls in the boat excitedly watch her reel in another fish.  Looks of horror flash across the faces of the dads standing along the pier.  “She caught another one!” one of the daughters cries out.

I am starting to enjoy the show now.  This can't be true, I think to myself. How on earth is this happening again? 

Hannah throws her fishing line back into the ocean and everything quiets down once again. The other dad can clean the fish if he keeps it. I am sensing a commingled spirit of anticipation and dread from the dads and daughters standing on the pier watching Hannah more than their fishing lines in the water.

“I don't believe it,” says one of the dads on the pier. Hannah is reeling in another fish. Dads and daughters start to abandon the pier, looking for boats to go out fishing in. I am still enjoying the show. Greedy dad is still in the back pocket, but arrogant dad is making a guest appearance. Feels like the score is now Hannah half a kabillion fish to the world’s zero, all accomplished using a fish pole made by me!

One of the other girls in the boat lets out an excited yell. She has now caught a fish!  Dads and daughters are hoping their curse is now broken and fish are available to other human beings.

One daughter on the pier screams with delight as she catches a fish. The dad is exuberant!

Hannah is laughing out loud as she reels in her third or fourth catch of the day. Another girl in her boat brings in yet another. This is going to turn into a fish slaughter.

At last, things gradually start to calm down. Maybe the sun is too high, the fish too smart (they do go to school, you know), or the water the wrong temperature. The bell rings, signaling lunch, and everyone comes ashore ready to eat and move on to another activity besides fishing.

The rest of the day is spent kayaking, hiking, and just relaxing. Best camp out ever! I think. And so goes the rest of the weekend. Hannah’s fishing pole and all of its magic feats slowly recede from the daily conversation.

On Sunday, we prepare to leave. As we gather our bags, I glance at Hannah’s pole in the corner of our hut. It will be awkward to carry along with all of our other gear, and lazy daddy whispers, Let’s just leave it behind.

“Daddy, don't forget my fishing pole!” Hannah calls out.  “Absolutely not!” I shout back. Begrudgingly, I pick up the pole and move all of our gear to the ferry boat. The pole makes its way all the way back to our garage where it is stored in a corner and forgotten as lives move on.

A year passes, and we are getting ready to return back to Catalina island for another long weekend. I have forgotten about the fishing pole, neglected in the corner of the garage the past 360 days, but Hannah has not. ”Daddy, please don't forget the fishing pole,” she grins.

Later, I am standing on the beach on Catalina island watching a few dads comb the beach looking for bamboo poles. They have seen Hannah bring hers as did their daughters.

What are the odds, I think, of the magic happening again?  Well, to keep a long story short, it did! But I never cleaned a fish, and the miracle fishing pole now resides in its ceremonial place of honor buried in the corner of our garage.

Story by Mike and Hannah Freeman, November, 2022.