The terrible oxygen: Place Post No. 4

The fish come quickly, as pan fish usually do. A small, yellow jig, a 1 ounce weight and two wax worms: perch after perch after perch. This bait/lure combination works well in the shallow waters around Nebraska, and I as I pull up the small fillets with fins, I volley back and forth between feeling bad for the effective deception, and the self-reliance I am armed with. Within the first half hour of being set-up at the lake, I have at least five of the small, green and yellow fish.

Commonly known as the yellow perch, or simply "perch," Perca flavescens is about 12,000 years old. Found throughout the United States, this freshwater fish has a clean, delicate flavor unlike the rather muddy, gamey flavor of the catfish or even some Crappies. Of the fish we catch during the winter, Perch has got to be my favorite. Today, each of the little guys we catch ranges from 5-8," but it's not unheard of to catch 11-inchers in other, bigger lakes.

"Tasty little potato chips," dad says, smiling as I struggle to unhook the recent catch that's hooked itself through its nose. I pride myself on being able to bait my hooks, unhook my bounty, but when a fish gouges itself in the eyeball, or swallows the whole damn rigging, the self-assured part of me dies. Dad raised me to make sure I could do these things- bait my hooks and unhook my windfalls, but he didn't teach me how to combat the feelings of sorrow that sometimes break the water along with the goodies. As a child, I couldn't focus on fishing enough to even worry about those things, since I could hardly sit still long enough to wait for something to set my hook. As an adult, I have the patience to sit still and listen to the water burping under the ice around me, but with that patience comes the contemplation of my actions.


Nebraska's Sandhills lakes have a high alkalinity to them, and for many years of the 19th century, Walgren Lake was known as Alkali Lake. The water in this lake ranges from flame-blue to mossy green and bruised, but in the winter, the crispness of the clear, frozen water works its way into the flavor of the animals you're after. I'm looking forward to the homemade beer batter and finger-length fish-fries we'll have tonight for dinner, so I can justify my actions in that matter: at least I am working here to feed myself. If I needed to do this to survive, I have the know-how.

But the fact of the matter is that I don't need to fish to survive. I can eat all sorts of other things: grilled-cheese sandwiches, or soups or vegetables. I think through the list of all the other things I come up with-- chicken, turkey, even hamburger, and know that most of my diet consists of things that were once living but were killed for their food matter. If I ate only what I killed, I'd have to be a vegetarian. Even then, though, things would die... The great satisfaction of fishing comes, I guess, primarily in spending time with my family, and then in knowing that unlike those who simply purchase their fish-sticks in stores, I know the reality of an animal food cycle.

I rehook another wax worm, a small, steamed-onion-like larva, and drop the line through two feet of ice, and probably eight feet of water. Mom has already caught a couple of Bluegill, Lepomis machrochirus, and I wonder what other kind of fish are in store.

Bullheads, catfish, Northern Pike, Crappie, Bluegill, Perch, and even the occasional Walleye make themselves at home in Walgren, and for as long as I can remember, people come here to pull up a tasty combo pack of bite-sized fish dinners. The thing about fishing this lake is that you are here to make a meal, not a name for yourself. None of the fish in this water are not going to be worth mounting, but reaching the half-way mark in a five-gallon bucket guarantees a few tasty meals for a family.

The sun shines above us, wisps of cirrus clouds promise softly falling layers of frozen water later in the afternoon, and a whole morning passes. Mom has brought her little dog along with us-- a first for my family-- and he's bounding about our small circumference of drilled holes, lapping at the heaving water that sucks in and out of holes. He's hooked up to the gear sled, and his small lunges pull it a few inches every so often. He's kind of entertaining, but in his small, plaid coat, he's more of a plaything than a domesticated animal with wild tendencies. The anglers to the west and south of us sit hunched over their small, 2' poles, jigging and waiting, waiting and jigging. I feel like we're the group with the most action, and by 11 am, when I feel like I've had enough (we left the house at 7:30), we've got half a bucket of Perch and Bluegill, swimming sideways and slowly in their deathwater.

I catch a Pike too, " a little snake," as dad calls them, and because it had swallowed the hook and gouged its throat, when I release it, the fish is bleeding badly.

Throw it down, it ain't gonna live," orders my dad. We don't eat E. lucius. Their meat isn't as mushy and muddy as the Catfish, so they're not that nasty, but its not as buttery-flavored as the Perch, or as solid. Boney and narrow, this long, skinny fish is hard to clean, but if it weren't dying, I'd through it back down the hole. Dad would let it lie on the ice to freeze. Bloody and mouthing and S.O.S. in the silent unease of a suffocating being, the Pike wriggles in my hand for a moment. I hold him up, eye the snout, and drop it to my feet. Mom's dog (whom I call The Weasel, for his long snout and beady eyes) lunges at the fish, paws it then wraps sharp teeth over the caudal (tail) fin, flipping it. I watch for a minute, then retreat, sitting back on my bucket and jigging my pole slowly. The Weasel growls and lunges, squeaks and bares teeth; the fish continues to die, slowly.

Once last summer, while fishing for salmon on Lake Oahe, I told dad that I didn't like the way he bled the fish in the water as we prepared to leave. I'd been having a hard time salmon fishing all summer, growing more and more aware of what began to feel like greed. Two years ago we caught 45 salmon-- more than the average man, maybe even bear (OK, not really bear, but you know..), and last summer we caught at least 40. Dad doesn't keep them all for himself, several of his elderly friends can no longer fish, so he smokes the fish and gives it to them, and twice a summer he holds a fish feed in town at the golf course. I see and respect the way he spreads out the enjoyment of these fish, but I wondered if it was necessary. Yet I felt helpless and wrong in my contributions to his hoard.

The Pike barely flips its fins now, and its mouth has stopped opening and closing. It would have died regardless, had I thrown it back in the water, but if I hadn't caught it at all, I wouldn't have been the cause of its demise. I think of Buddhist lovingkindness, how all being are supposed to be equal and all actions will come back to haunt us. I think of "The Fish," a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, in which her catch-and-release is both humble and full of victory.

While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen... I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,...
They shifted a little, but not to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light.

Eventually, the fish dies, his last breath a choking one, dry and raspy in the cold, winter air. Mom's dog loses interest in the inanimate fish, and I am even sorry for The Weasel. Not because he is no longer entertained--we sic-ed 'em on that poor fish to entertain us, didn't we?--but because he is a wild animal, trapped in a child-small coat, fettered by domestication and the power of bored humans.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to say "no" to dad for good, when he asks me to go fishing, but I do know that when he too, has cast his last hook and sucked in his last gasp of air, my days as predator on the ice and the water will be over. I tell myself that for now, it's OK to fish, I eat what I catch and I am intimate with the life cycles of these aquatic animals, but if it weren't for my family, fish sticks and white fleshed "potato chips" wouldn't even cross my mind or my stomach.