“There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot,” is what Doug Larson said about a fishing trip. My uncle must believe that a whole lot because he went as far as he could to not stand on the shore at all but rather do what Larson must have been thinking as he stated that: persevere even when it seems not to count.

“I’ve got one!” exclaims my uncle. My dad, my cousin, my grandpa, and I stiffen, as if by instinct. “Wait, never mind. It’s just a mini sunfish.”

As he reels it onto the hardwood dock we stand on, the hot summer sun strikes my eyes, reflected back by the water it had originally intended to blind. I adjust the sunglasses I wear and see the fish he has just caught. It is just a mini sunfish.

His hands maneuver expertly, taking the slimy flesh of the not so beastly little creature in them. Then, though, I see him hesitate. The lightbulb going off in his head sounds like a cannon.

To my horror, he says nonchalantly, “I’m going to cast it back out. Maybe I’ll catch a bigger one with it.”

I hate when people do that, though I can’t say I’m not guilty of it myself. When I was younger, I never cared how the fish felt or about anything like that, so I committed the crime that I now consider to be the worst a kid my age could carry out while fishing. Something clicked from when I was little until now, though.

My dad replies before I can say anything, though, saying, “Sure. Go ahead. You probably won’t catch anything, though.” He then turns to me and my cousin and says, “Watch out. This could be pretty dangerous with all the weight.”

My brain tells me to lunge for the poor creature as it soars through the air, feeling what flight is like for probably the only time in its life, but soar on it does, my instincts for sharp things like hooks suddenly kicking in. It lands with a horrible splashing sound and a comparably small wake. My uncle’s line swims and I want to tell the fish to stop swimming or it will attract a bigger one.

To my relief, he sets the rod down, knowing that such a small creature won’t pull it into the water, and pulls the sunscreen out of his pocket. Everything in Maine seems hotter than it does in Massachusetts, and the fact that our rental house is on a lake without many trees around doesn’t help anything.

Setting his rod down is the only mistake he makes that fishing trip, but somehow it changes the whole thing.
We all gather around him for a squirt of the sunscreen in our hands, not because we want to, but because the moms told us before we left to do it. When the tube gets to me, a smooth splashing sound rings in our ears. Not a big huge slapping sound like the fish made, but a mere slip of water past an object.

The outline of my uncle’s fishing rod slowly disintegrates into the murkiness as our eyes widen in shock.
“Abe! Was that you?” my uncle sputters. He then shifts his gaze to my cousin, who stands there looking up at his father. “Was it you?”

Both of us reply in unison, “No, I don’t think so.”

I can see the doubt in his eyes, burning a hole through my own. I know I didn’t do it, but what about somebody else. Anybody standing here could be subject to my uncle’s suspicion.

That suspicion leaves his body as we all stare at the still-barely-visible silhouette of the rod start to swim away. I don’t know when the others realize it, but I know right away that none of us are guilty. He was right that the sunfish couldn’t do this, but what if something else could? There is another fish on the other end of the rod, and it must be a big one, because it is persistent in its tugging of the rod.

My dad stands there, jaw dropping as my uncle pulls his t-shirt up and over his head and hands it to him to hold. He unloads important objects from his cargo shorts and hands them to my dad, too, who now stands with a pair of glasses, a phone, a wallet, and that t-shirt in his grip.

My uncle takes a short, crazy look back at the rest of us and then lines himself up, his bare feet gripping the wood dock like they don’t want him to do it.

But he does.

We all turn away as the drops of water explode in a haze of blue. When I look back down, all I can see is the outline of the man I once knew as a calm, laid back person. Maybe he still is like that, but not right now. Right now he has ditched those aspects of himself in order to not lose this battle.

As the light brown of his shorts fades further and further into the blueness, the whole world freezes. The water, the rod, my uncle, and our dazed faces seem to be the only things left in the world. Even the wind, which has been blowing consistently all day, has died down to a few puffs of thin air in our faces.

Then, after about thirty seconds and just as we are all about to jump in after him, the murkiness parts and his body becomes more and more detailed, like a timelapse of an artist at work with his brush. As his head breaks the surface, we all let out a breath that has been trapped within our lungs for as long as he was under.
As if it were a miracle, the last thing we all expect to happen next happens. Instead of gasping for air like the rest of us, my uncle pants, “I’ve got… it! Help me up!” Sure enough the glint of the sun on the aluminum rod catches my gaze. He does have his rod, but he has something else that he didn’t notice at first.

His soaked pants heave water at the world as he rolls up onto the dock, one hand holding the rod and the other gripping the perfectly sanded wood. My heart still hops around inside my chest, but that’s an improvement from its previous leaping.

The rod in his hand towers above us all. When he stands, he looks temporarily like the Statue of Liberty with the torch replaced by a fishing rod, but then that fake torch gets yanked backwards in an awkward, jerking movement.
“It’s stuck in the weeds,” my uncle says, but I know better. Weeds don’t swim.

“I don’t think so,” I stutter. “I think that fish that dragged it in is still on there.”

I see his mouth open to say that it is definitely gone by now, but his arms are suddenly dragged farther and farther out towards the glistening water. He instinctively plants his feet and bends his knees.
“Yep! And it’s a big one!” my uncle exclaims.

Again, his hands move as if he were a professional, which, by this point, I am actually weighing if that is true. The reel spins as if the wind were blowing it, not human hands. The thin line he was not intending to catch a monster with hisses by it.
Thirty seconds go by.
Then thirty more.

And then, with a majestic final leap, the shiny, ginormous body of a largemouth bass appears above the surface before it gives up and allows my uncle to bring it up on the dock.

Although I am secretly angry at my uncle for keeping it, I eat that bass with the rest of my family that night. There is no evidence that can prove the story we have told the moms at least fifty times by now, but I know that it’s true. Plus, I’m pretty sure there is a hint of rusty fishing rod within all of the flakey white meat! That fishing trip, my uncle didn’t only teach me that he is a very serious fisherman, but also a life long lesson. Even when it doesn’t seem like it matters, like on a small fishing trip with a cheap Wal-Mart fishing rod, perseverance is still a needed possession. If you need to jump in the water and swim to the bottom of a lake because your rod got dragged there, jump. Even it is crazy, you might just be rewarded with dinner.