All the while, the canoe was being pulled inexorably towards the pilings. It was mere moments before the front of the boat hit the sticky wood and with his free hand, Trey grabbed hold. It was better than being drug out into the lake, or even the weeds. What he prayed for, however, is the fish wouldn’t wrap the line around the pole.
Luckily, he didn’t have his usual trout rig, but the heavy-duty rig he had been given last Christmas and it wasn’t called the Ugly Stick for nothing. The line was twenty-pound test and could handle upwards of a hundred pounds if used skillfully. The tip of the rod continued to dance and jump as he could feel a long hulk, struggling far below to get free.
Suddenly, the line went slack. Trey momentarily stopped reeling and cried out, tears filling his eyes. Almost as fast, he realized the fish could be attempting to surface. He wiped his eyes and redoubled his fight, taking line in furious and quick. He couldn’t match the speed of the fish, however, and when it surfaced, Greg screamed. It’s gaping maw, at least two feet across, snapped at the air on the left side of the boat as it rose out of the water. He wondered who was catching whom. The head of the great fish slammed into the water with a huge splash, soaking the boys and the boat and disappearing in the murk of the water. Something rammed the bottom of the boat sending Greg into the water and Trey to the bottom of the boat. On the right side, a tail flapped the surface angrily several times.
Then chaos returned to order as the fish disappeared and the urgency of the moment subsided.
Greg, treading water, began to alternately scream and gurgle as he panicked, trying to kick the fish and swim back to the boat, simultaneously.
“Trey… Trey… gggg… Help me.”
Trey, picked himself up from the cramped floor of the boat, now covered in fish guts and soaked with the bloody mixture from his earlier cutting. The rod forgotten, he grabbed the paddle and held it out towards his struggling friend. Within seconds, Greg was back in the boat, hyperventilating and crying.
“Jesus H. Christ. Did you see the size of that thing?”
“Did I see it? It almost ate me!” screamed back Greg.
Trey was about to tell him how stupid that was, then stopped. It had been the biggest fish he had ever seen. Too many times he had swum in the deep water, the ‘Jaws’ soundtrack playing in his mind. Even though no one had ever heard of a person being eaten in a freshwater lake by a shark or a fish and even though no one had ever been chewed up by a catfish, he couldn’t help but wonder.
Trey glanced around and noticed his rod had disappeared, surely, on the bottom of the lake being drug around by his own Moby Dick. He maneuvered Greg into the seat and noticed the young boy was beginning so shiver uncontrollably. Trey jerked off his shirt and ordered his friend to remove his shoes. He massaged the boy’s arms and shoulders until he could see the blood return. Both of them were crying, their chance at greatness, twice removed.
“I wanna go home,” said Greg, trying real hard to stop crying. “I don’t want to fish anymore.”
“Okay. Okay,” said Trey, wanting to stay and try again. The lure of all fishermen who had just lost the big one was upon him, but he had lost his rod. There was only Greg’s and there was an unwritten rule never to fish with anyone else’s pole. His grandfather had said that ‘if you caught something on someone else’s rig, it wouldn’t really be your own.’ The great fish, if it could be recaught, would belong to Greg.
Trey eyed the sky and saw a storm moving in, hard grey clouds pushing aside the day quickly. They probably had only fifteen minutes before it hit; just long enough for Greg to dry off before he became soaked again. It would take twice that to make it back across the inlet to the community dock. Trey eyed the immense TNT dock and thought about taking shelter beneath. He had no idea how long it would last however, and Greg really needed to get home and into dry clothes.
“Shit,” said Trey, accepting his fate.
It was then he saw his fishing pole, about five feet under the water and wrapped around one of