Handle with Care

I was fishing Timothy Lake with Alex out of a canoe, slowly trolling nightcrawlers. The trout fishing was okay that day and we had landed several nice 10 to 12 inch rainbows. Alex had also been enjoying himself, but my repetitive nitpicking about trolling speeds and s-curves and “if you smack the water with your oar like that one more time you’ll have an F7 frog flatfish in your lower lip” was starting to get on his nerves. Tensions were wearing thin. Suddenly, a large fish struck my line with tremendous force.  This fish felt powerful, especially on my light rod.  It ran, jumped, and fought.  Alex stood ready with the net.  With a scoop, Alex netted the fish.  There it was, all 17 ½ inches of it, with a vibrant pink stripe down its side.  It was a rainbow and a nice fish for this time of the year.  I soon realized, to my chagrin that I had landed the fish green (meaning it still had fight in it) and it was thrashing vigorously in the net.  I was planning to keep the fish and take it home for dinner, so in an attempt to control the fish, I jammed my finger in its mouth.  Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain.  I looked down at my thumb and saw that the teeth of the trout had ripped a series of scrapes.  I covered my thumb with my shirt, and tossed the fish in the keep net. My thumb was bleeding so badly we needed to row to shore to get a band aid. I still insisted on letting another spinner behind the boat, but that’s just me. I discolored a good part of my white shirt until the bleeding stopped, and for several days it was throbbing painfully. It even got infected. The lesson here: trout are not bass.  Hold one by the lip and expect a painful, bloodied finger. I’ve also had more failed “lipping” experiences, from when a two pound schoolmaster snapper bit down on my thumb, sinking its two long canine fangs in my teeth, to when an eight inch-wide Dungeness crab pinched me, to when a sea bass started thrashing around with my finger in its mouth, lacerating my hands. Still, for some reason, none of them were as bad as that one trout.