FISHING BRIDGE

 

Those many years ago, when I was just a little nipper, about nine years old, our dad had taken my older brother Bob and me on a camping/fishing vacation up to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.  Dad would find us a suitable camp ground and then busy himself with putting up the tent.  Dad was a master camper and consequently I don’t ever remember him asking us boys to help set up the camp; somehow it would just miraculously appear.

Once the camp was all set up, we would immediately go out to go fishing.  Dad was an avid fly-fisherman, but before he went out for himself he would find us a good fishing hole and then he would plop Bob and I down near the bank, give us some bait for our hooks, and then we would get a short fishing lesson; “Now just toss your line in by that deep hole over there and let the bait drift down river for a while.  Why, you’ll have yourself a fish in no time”, and then he would leave us to go out and do his number one passion, fly-fishing.

Well, on this particular trip, he took us over to Yellowstone’s famous Fishing Bridge.  I say that because today we passed over that very same Fishing Bridge as we were heading for our camp site for the night.  Today though, there was not even one person fishing from the bridge.  In fact there was a sign that said “No fishing”.  I hope this is just a temporary thing; it seems a shame to name a bridge “Fishing Bridge” if you don’t allow anyone to fish from it.

 

As usual, dad took Bob and I to what he thought was the best place available on the bridge where his boys could catch a fish.  I don’t know how he decided where that spot was, since both sides on the entire length of the bridge were packed shoulder to shoulder with fishermen; grizzled old men who had been fishing all their lives, their wives who needed someone else to bait their hooks, and their kids who would get their hooks tangled up in your clothes more often than not.

After setting us down with our poles and bait, he gave us the same instructions, “Now just toss your line in there by that deep hole over there and let the bait drift down river for a while.  Why, you’ll have yourself a fish in no time”, after which he would go off and find himself a prime fly-fishing spot.

As we waited there, intent on detecting any kind of action that would indicate that there was a hungry fish sampling that tasty Salmon egg on our hooks, we listened to the other fishermen telling of how no one had even gotten a bite all day, let alone actually caught a fish. We were not to be deterred though, dad had selected this spot for us and we were going to catch ourselves a fish.

We had been there about fifteen minutes; casting our baited hooks out into the current just as dad had told us to do, then letting the line drift down stream.  As I was standing there dreaming about “the big one”, I felt an almost indiscernible tug on my line.  “I’ve got one” I yelled, immediately setting the hook and wildly starting to reel him in, all in contrast to what dad had taught us; “Let the fish savor the hook, give him a few nibbles and then one clean jerk to set the hook.  Then slowly reel him in”.  No, this was my fish and I was going to show all the rest of the fishermen on that bridge that my dad knew how to catch fish. 

That fish was literally skipping across the top of the water as I reeled him in.   “A fish”, I thought, “I’ve got myself a fish”.  As the fish was being tugged across the top of the water towards the bridge, everyone around was giving me their expert advice.  I didn’t need their advice; after all, I’m the one who caught the fish.  I finally got him up to the bridge and started to pull him up the twelve feet between the water and the top of the bridge.  He was a beauty; a flashing, twisting Rainbow, about ten inches long.  What a catch.

I had him up about four feet out of the water, soaking in every cheer and congratulation that was offered, when all of the sudden he was no longer there. He had flipped off the hook.  A collective “Oooh” arose from the entire group of fisherman on the bridge.  In that one instant, all of the instructions my dad had ever given me on how to land a fish were now racing through my mind.

That’s about all I remember about that trip; the fact that I was the only one to catch a fish off of Fishing Bridge that day.  Me, just a little kid.

If I had landed the fish that day, it probably would probably have been lost with all the other memories I have of all the other fish I have caught over the years; but that was the fish that I caught from the Fishing Bridge, the fish that no one else was able to catch that day. 

So what if he got away?  Today’s fishermen follow the catch and release rule; you catch the fish for the sport of it;  after you have landed the fish, then you let him go to swim again for another day.  I guess I was just a fisherman ahead of my time.