They are out there

I can still recall the flick of the wrist that started it all. The flick that, after successfully pleading with my dad for ‘one more cast’, sent those thin coils of monofilament line spinning off the green and white Zebco reel, dragged along behind the red and white bobber, snelled hook, and mini jet-puffed marshmallow. The plop as the bobber splashed down into the rich, tannic waters of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. A brief pause - ripples dissipating, and then the bobber disappeared, almost gently, under the surface of the water and there was the unmistakable tug of life on the other end of my line. Just below the surface something violent writhed and thrashed, churning up muck and silt, obscuring visibility in the reddish water. A glimpse of something – was it a fin? – was all I got. Thhhht, thhhht, went my line, taut, as it sliced through the shallow waters. I can’t say if I had a look of joy or terror on my face at that moment, and I hope it was joy, but fear it was terror. It is a good thing that my ten year-old hands and wrists were already strong and agile from many rounds of Missile Command and Space Invaders, for I needed every ounce of strength to crank the handle on the little Zebco, whose designers undoubtedly did not design the reel to handle such ferocity. 

After what seemed like an hour but was probably twenty seconds, I gained ground; soon, the battle was over. Out of the stained Pine Barren waters and onto the dusty shores of the small pond I pulled a monster – a long, green and gold creature with a snake-like head filled with teeth, an animal so ghastly I would have sworn it was leftover from the Cretaceous period. It lay there, on the ground, gill plate rising and falling to the rhythm of life, dappled sunlight reflecting off the water and slime coating its side, jaws slightly agape, a lidless, circular eye seemingly fixed on me, as I was on it. If this creature had legs – indeed, if it had even so much as moved towards me, I would have run for the hills. Only in the movies and in the dark corners of my imagination had I seen something so monstrously wild. 

It was a Chain Pickerel; weighing perhaps two pounds and no more than eighteen inches in length. 

But no matter what the cold hard figures of a scale or tape measure might have told me about my adversary, that fish was a monster. Sailors from eras past had the giant squid, or perhaps the terrible Kraken; I had this. Much as those creatures became legends both feared and revered to them, so too did this fish to me. It gave me the certainty of belief that the fantastic and the unbelievable do exist. If you felt something brush past your leg, if you thought you saw something through the murky, weedy waters; well, that was probably him. 

In the decades I have fished since that day in New Jersey, I have yet to catch anything that grabbed hold of my consciousness like that Chain Pickerel. But I know they are out there, and I will keep casting. One day, perhaps, I will get lucky and toss my line to the exact spot where imagination meets fear, and I will again feel the tug of a monster.