The stream washed along silently through the chilly spring morning in April. The sun was trapped behind the fluffiest white clouds you can remember. You know the type that just sits there in the sky never moving. Perfect for a painter who enjoys that type of thing but for an 8 year old boy out fishing with his father at 7 in the morning it really didn’t help the situation. Not that I minded going fishing with the old man. I just preferred doing it in the sun while sitting on a log or a chair fooling around while he minded the rods and reels. But this year was different, it was my first opening day of trout season and it would be one that I would never forget.
Dad was always an avid fisherman taking me and my brothers whenever he went to wet a line or as he put it “drown some worms”. We would run around doing anything but fish while he would be content just sitting there eating a sandwich or a soft pretzel. But this year he was going to make fishermen out of us. He bought us new fishing rods. Mine was fire engine red with Mickey Mouse on it while my brother chose the orange Donald Duck special edition. After filling up our new tackle boxes the night before we went to bed because we were leaving early for the secret fishing spot that no one else knew about. Excited we dashed off to bed as if it was Christmas Eve.
Well so much for the fishing spot being a big secret. Everywhere I looked that morning the banks of the Pennypack Creek were crowded with anglers with their lines in the water. We sat alongside my Dad eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast. Dad had a secret way of making sure the bread wouldn’t get soggy from the jam. He would cover up both pieces of bread with peanut butter instead of just one making a jelly proof barrier that tasted just perfect on whole wheat. After an hour of sitting around freezing my little ass off I finally felt a tugging on my rod. I had caught fish before but this one was a fish clearly not designed to be handled with my new Mickey Mouse rod. “Reel it in, this one’s all yours!” my father yelped as I became terrified that I was not only going to lose the half eaten sandwich in my lap but also the fish at the end of my line. Cranking the reel back I began to drag the mighty beast on the end of the line. “You were so excited about that fish you said ‘I think I’ve caught Godzilla!” my father tells me years later. With a couple of more wrenches on the reel I finally lug in the biggest fish I had ever caught up to that point, a 17 inch rainbow trout.
“Put him in the bucket!” my dad said and like a good little soldier I did just that. I couldn’t go back to fishing after that, not with my new found friend swimming around in the bucket at my feet. I dropped little kernels of corn in the bucket for him to eat but for some reason he didn’t want any. By the end of the day my new friend, Freddy was what I named him, was joined in the bucket with 4 or 5 more trout which my dad and brother had caught throughout the day. It was time to go home so my father emptied the bucket of its water and put Freddy in his trout box as we started to walk for the car.
Arriving home I couldn’t wait to put Freddy into the family fish tank. “He was going into something that night but it wasn’t going to be the fish tank.” my mother later remembered. I was informed that Freddy would be joining me for dinner that night and really what kid wouldn’t want to have his new buddy over for dinner right? Well that wasn’t exactly what my father had in mind. Being that it was my first fish of the season it was “family tradition” to eat your first catch. Shaking my head in disbelief I watched as my father pulled Freddy out of the trout box and onto the cutting board. My little buddy wasn’t moving, in fact he looked dead. Not that it mattered because two seconds later my father was chopping off his head with a butcher’s cleaver. Next he cleaned Freddy, filleting him and then placing his meat into a preheated cast iron skillet along with some onions, peppers, butter, and fresh garlic. He then sprinkled some salt and pepper on him for good taste I guess. I was going to be sick. Reeling from my loss I was told to have a seat at the dinner table. I ate my salad like I was told to and when the main course arrived on my plate I instantly broke down into tears. Sitting in front of me was the filet of my good buddy Freddy. “Here you go son, Freddy, fried and ready!” I heard my father yelp with what I remember sounding like a southern accent. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t even look up at the horror on my plate. Still crying profusely I begged my parents to let me go to bed without dinner that night. They refused my plea stating I had to eat my dinner. “Eat my dinner?” I thought to myself. They had to be kidding right? Me, eat my little aquatic play pal from just an hour and a half before? I don’t think so. I ended up sitting in my kitchen chair for the next 2 hours mourning the filet that was on my plate. Eventually I was given my reprieve and I got up to go to bed. I left Freddy on the table that night. I don’t know what happened to him after that but I would bet $2 my dad probably had something to do with disposing the body.
To this day I have never eaten a fish I have caught out in the wild. Now I practice C.P.R., catch-photo-release, when I go fishing. Even my old man stopped eating them. Part of it I’m sure was learning how much the old Pennypack Creek was polluted but also I like to think he remembers that one night many years ago when his son was served a fish he just couldn’t eat.
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