best of intentions

We took the boys fishing today at a local pond. Although the pond is a bit small and yucky, it’s a calm and lovely family pastime that we’ve come to enjoy. The boys love the catch and release and have learned how to cast quite beautifully. This morning, we watched as a father and son walked up with their fishing gear to set up nearby. They had gear much more impressive than ours—seemed to be taking their outing far more seriously than we, intending to actually keep the fish they were confident to catch, even though we have only ever been able to catch 3-inch fish from this pond.

We watched in wonder as they set up their lines, buckets and live bait (we were using bits of leftover pepperoni picked off from last night’s pizza). We thought for certain we would learn something from their expertise. Moments later the father threw a yellow bucket far into the water, meant for holding the live fish they were sure to soon catch when quickly he let out a yelp followed by a curse as he realized the bucket was not attached to anything on land. He and his son watched helplessly as the bucket slowly floated further away into the mucky water. The son encouraged his father to retrieve it before it went much further. So, out the father went, in his pants and flip flops—red faced and frustrated. As he stepped back onto shore—one broken flip flop dangling from his foot, we tried to act like we weren’t watching when he shot us an embarrassed glance.

A half hour passed as we cast our lines in unison next to this father and son, waiting for the fish to bite. As our boys pointed out a blue heron and ducks swimming nearby, we couldn’t help but overhear the father voicing his frustration at the fish in the water: “COME ON! Take it, already! Eat the damn thing! Bite it! Jesus!”

I suppose we did learn something about fishing from them, but it wasn’t anything about technique or gear. It was about finding joy in just being together- without agenda. Today I realized that fishing for us is not about the fish at all.