Cattywhompus

Fishing was good in Littlefield, but now and again the Old Man load up Mom and me, the dogs, and my sister Jill (a.k.a. Sinister) and strike out for new water. Hardy Pond was a favorite spot when the walleye and smallmouth were biting. We would rumble into the quiet little RV park just above Hardy Dam in our 1969 Ford one-ton pickup, Creampuff, with a ton-and-a-half, Gypsy-looking camper on the back, complete with a roofed back porch and wrought iron railing, hauling our pontoon-turned-houseboat; back the whole top-heavy string down the crumbling concrete boat launch; and putter the houseboat up to last dock to tie up.

Next, Dad would unhook the trailer and lurch Creampuff back to the campsite to level the camper and unload the dogs. Jill and I would run them quickly across the gravel drive to an unmowed patch of trees, weeds and occasional poison ivy to relieve themselves. By the time we returned, the Old Man was usually seated on the deck of the houseboat, stringing fishing poles.

From a kid’s perspective, when the fish were biting no place was better than Hardy Pond. While fishing walleye, you might hook a smallmouth, a pike, a bluegill the size of your face, you name it. We’d even heard tell of monster muskie and catfish in those waters, both of which were on the Old Man’s short list of dream fish.

Usually the fish were biting on Hardy—but one summer they weren’t. After several luckless days on the river, the Old Man proclaimed we would spend a day at the docks, fishing pike in the weedy campground cove.

The day was sunny and not too hot, with a gentle breeze blowing into the cove. My folks sat on opposite sides of the little bay, drifting sucker minnows over the drop-off on big orange-and-white slip bobbers. I worked the shallows with a worm, trying to coax a panfish worth filleting out from under the bobbing boats. Sinister was, in theory, still in the lawn chair by the camper where we left her, reading while the dogs slept under the truck. I kept a weather eye over my shoulder, just in case.

The sun slipped by overhead, the quiet of the river interrupted periodically by a question from Mom’s side of the cove—“Should I reel in and throw him out again, Hun?” “Do you think I need a new minnow? This one isn’t swimming very much ...”—and grunts of affirmation from my father.

Mom sat on the end of her dock, a newer wooden construction, in a t-shirt and jeans with her flip-flops beside her, her pant legs rolled to her calves, and her feet cooling in the water. Her eyes were hidden beneath a white visor and clip-on sunglasses, but her mouth was set, determined. The Old Man wore jeans and a t-shirt too, but with leather workboots, a wide leather belt hung with a variety of tools, blades, and lights, and a broad ten-gallon hat low on his brow. He was seated in a blue canvas lawn chair on the most precarious dock on the river—an aluminum job on black rubber floats, rising and falling with the movement of the water. The deep end of this particular dock, however, was jammed in such a kittywhompus fashion that Dad’s lawn chair would have crab-walked sideways into the water were his weight not holding it down. Aside from his left leg, which was braced against the lefthand pole to keep himself from spilling over, the Old Man appeared relaxed and serene.

Toward evening, the fish began to bite, and as the sun sank behind the trees, we had two keeper pike and a few smallish perch. I inquired about supper, as boys will, but I was also getting nervous that I hadn’t seen or heard from Sinister in hours, and the light was fading. Mom began to reel in. Dad sat motionless, gazing at his bobber as he had all afternoon.

As if on cue, the orange float began to bob frantically. The Old Man responded as a predator might—with a heightened sense of alertness but no sudden movement. He watched the line spool off the reel and into the deep, his hand poised at the crank.

The line stopped and went slack. Slowly, slowly, Dad turned the crank, and the reel clicked. Softly, softly, he reeled in the slack, feeling his way to the fish, waiting for weight or a sudden tug. When he felt resistance, he snapped the pole upward to set the hook, stood, and cranked furiously.

I saw him, pole in hand, fighting the fish—a question mark against the blushing sky, his line gleaming in the golden light, pointing to the answer deep in the weedy cove. I saw his lawn chair skitter up against the back of his legs, cutting off his only avenue of retreat. I heard Mom excitedly asking impossible questions, “You got it, hun? What is it? What’ve you got?”

“Dunno,” he said as the drag whined in protest. “It’s big.” He pumped the rod, reeling on the downstroke. He grunted against the thrashing fish, and I could see the sweat gleaming on his forearms.

“Yeah. It’s big,” he said. Then he said four words I that filled me with dread: “Dogbreath! Get the net!”

I ran the length of the narrow boardwalk that circled the cove connecting a dozen docks—all the way to the very last dock, where the houseboat rocked on the evening waves, oblivious to the primordial struggle around the bend. As I ran, I reflected on the Old Man’s request and my immediate dread. I knew he had a smaller net with him, a wooden one handcrafted by Grandpa that was as old as I could remember. Nope, he wanted the big net, and that meant a lunker.

I grabbed the big net and hurried back. I could see my father straining still, leaning back at the waist, his rod bent into a semicircle. Mom was standing on her dock across the cove, cheering him on—“You got him, hun! Reel him in!”—and a crowd of kids and campers had gathered to watch the excitement.

“He’s in the weeds,” the Old Man muttered. The lawn chair appeared to have been kicked backward, halfway to shore. The Old Man shuffled his feet now and again for better purchase on the tilted dock, and I saw my doom unfold.

I had been thinking that the worst that could happen (and more than likely would happen) was that, in attempting to net the fish I would either A) knock the hook from its mouth and set it free, or B) drop the net and watch the creature carry it to the bottom of the cove. Now I saw with utter certainty that the reality was far worse—the added weight of boy and fish would suffice to free the jammed dock on its moorings, and when it leapt back to level, my straining father would end up in the water, losing fish, rod, net, and dignity—and in my case, any chance at another birthday.

“The net!” snapped the Old Man as he raised the pole high into the air. I took a deep breath, and stepped to the gallows.

Ten feet from the end of the dock something rolled to the surface, broad and black, trailing six feet of weeds. Dad registered his unbelief with a low whistle. “Not a pike,” he said under his breath. “Not a muskie.”

“Whatcha got?” shouted a kid on a bike.

“What is it?” yelled Mom. “Is it a keeper?”

“It’s a ...” hedged the Old Man.

A broad mouth gaped at me, black eyes stared from across millennia, weeds and whiskers and slimy black skin. “It’s a monster!” I yelled.

“It’s catfish!” hollered the Old Man. “Flathead! Go on, net him, now!”

I began to lower the big net into the water, and caught movement from the corner of my eye. Sinister! I turned to see her, smiling sweetly. “Dad?” she called, “can I help?” Her foot was poised above the dock; her eyes, fixed on me.

I turned back toward Dad, plunged the net into the water, and scooped it full of catfish. “Nope, I got it!” I shouted, dragging the net toward shore. “You stay there—I got him; I’ll bring him to you!”

The Old Man followed with the pole, and Mom hustled around the cove to meet us. The crowd was abuzz: “Ugly thing.” “Three feet if it’s an inch!” “What’ll that go, 20 pounds?”

Dad hoisted the fish from the net and held it up for inspection. “Flathead cat!” he said triumphantly. "Ol' Cattywhompus himself!"

“You always said you wanted to catch one,” said Mom.

“Nice job, Dad!” said Sinister. She elbowed me lightly in the ribs. “You, too, Germ.”

“Yeah,” said the Old Man, mussing my hair with a rough hand. “Nice job, bud.”