This Month's Story
PIERRE AND HIS PET FISH
I’ve noticed the last few days that there is a brave soul wade fishing over by Carrere’s pier. He’s been out there in the water despite the low eighties temperature we’ve had lately. It’s a little cool to stand there for an hour or two like he has been and fish.
Stella hasn’t been wade fishing since last summer and I miss having some trout and maybe a little fried roe for breakfast.
This morning was not as warm, but the water is calm, the sun dances on the few ripples caused by the cat paws of light breezes and above all this hung a bright, seemingly endlessly clear, sky. It’s going to be a nice day and as I sit down for my morning coffee on the porch, I mentally prepare myself up to enjoy it.
Looking out I see my fisherman in the water, the cool water up around his waist, a still figure moving ever so slowly now and then to cast. He reminds me of a heron in the shallows taking agonizing steps and watching, watching the water for its food.
We had a storm awhile back that took away the remnants of the platform that had been at the end of the pier and so, instead of climbing up on the platform and sitting dry, he has to stand in the water.
Later, as I was driving to check for mail in the post office I saw him leaving the water to head back to his truck. I stopped and yelled the standard question.
“Any luck??”
There was a pause as if he had to think about it, or the sound traveling over the water was slow, or both.
“Nothing!!!”
I waved and putting the truck in first, and drove on.
There was no mail and when I came back he and the old ford truck he had parked on the shoulder were gone. I suppose in a way, neither of us having had what we went for. Still he had been out there, doing what he evidently enjoyed, fishing, and I had enjoyed the fruitless ride with Jennie sitting by me in my drive to the post office.
Later that day, I got an e-mail message from a friend who is an ardent fisherman. I think he sort of associates with me because I am not. I guess he feels sort of sorry for me. No, come to think about it I’m sure he feels sort of sorry for me.
His e-mail was one of those e-mail fishing jokes that probably goes around the world to a million people before sundown. Only this was a Cajun fishing joke, and I guess to really appreciate it, you have to appreciate Cajun stories and you have to say it with a Cajun accent:
Pierre was stopped by the game warden with an ice chest full of freshly caught fish in a bayou everyone knows is just full with lots and lots a fish.
The game warden, he looked at the ice chest and then looked again. Finally he asked Pierre, “Aha, I see Pierre, you got yourself that there ice chest sitting in your pirogue and I see it is full of fish. Tell me, Pierre, I don’t suppose you have a license to catch those fish?”
Pierre replied, “Naw, ma fren, I ain’t got none of dem license things, no, not me. But dese ain’t no catching fish. Why, man, dese fish are my friends. Dey is my pet fish.”
“Pet fish?!” the warden replied.
“Ya. Pet Fish. Avery night I take dese here fish down to de bayou and let dem swim ‘round for a while. Oh, man, they do like it. Ater a bit I whistle and dey jump rat back into dat dere ice chest and I take dem home.”
“That’s a bunch of hooey! Fish can’t do that!”
Pierre sat in his pirogue for a long moment looking over at the game warden and then said, “It’s de truth ma’ fren, I’ll show you. It really works.”
“Okay, this I GOT to see!”
So, Pierre opened the ice chest and poured the fish back into the bayou. The fish swam away and the two men both sat and waited. After several minutes, the game warden turned to Pierre and said,
“Well?”
“Well, what?” said Pierre.
“When are you going to call them back?”
“Call who back?” Pierre asked.
“The FISH.”
“What fish?” Pierre asked.
I can’t help it, I laughed. But then I got to thinking and sent an e-mail to a friend at the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources: “Fred, why except for the money, does the state collect fishing license money from Mississippi residents?”
His reply was as quick as the wonderful thing that e-mail is allows.
“That’s a very good question. Actually, money has very little to do with it. When the license was first proposed some years ago it was pointed out that a fee wasn’t even necessary just as long as the license was required. Since no one issues a cost-free license though, a fee of $5.00 was established for residents.”
“The actual usefulness of the license is to help fisheries managers like myself determine the size of the recreational fishery in numbers of anglers. Otherwise we wouldn’t have a clue as to how many folks were actually fishing.”
“By knowing average catch statistics as determined from creel survey intercepts, we can approximate with some statistical validity the total recreational catch by species. Such fishing-pressure and fishing mortality estimates are needed to evaluate the health of our fisheries stocks... Regards, Fred,”
So Pierre was out to bend the curve a little.
What the heck, I bet he, like my fishing friend of this morning, enjoyed the fishing and will probably be there catching the same enjoyment when I drive by with Jennie on my way to the post office.
It’ll all be there, waiting.
These beautiful days go by one by one and like Pierre said,
Dese days, dere are my friends.
