NEIL CAMERON
Special to the Mirror
I don’t know what caused me more consternation.
The speed with which the Chinook was peeling off line, or the smile and laughter of eight-year-old Travis Marin as he held the rod with one hand and ‘dabbled’ his fingers into the Ferris-wheel-on-steroids that was the blurred knobs of the reel.
It was the first time in the Tyee Pool for him and his 12-year-old brother Josh. They had eagerly obeyed all my commands. Line was let out to specific measurements, rods were held as correctly as my patience allowed. And then I lost it. The ebb had taken me off the ‘corner’ of the pool and north into nothingness.
My only choice was to either row obligingly with the tide until Josh could start the motor and we could get back into the pool, or row across the shallows and enter the pool that way. I took the rowing.
I had removed the slip weights from their line and they both let their plugs drag in the water feet behind the boat.
“Can we let more line out?” asked Josh.
“Can we Neil?” came the little echo.
“No,” I said, the consummate Tyee rower who sits at the right hand of God.
“Why not?”
“Why not?” came the little echo.
My teeth gritted. One eyebrow came down in anger and I gave them the obvious answer.
“Because!” I croaked. I was still upset at getting blown off the corner and the rowing wasn’t exactly easy back to the pool. They were easy targets on which to take out my frustration.
“Because why?”
“Because why?” came the little echo.
“Because I said so!” I croaked again.
The ensuing minutes were fraught with tension. We were in 10 feet of water and not making any headway. The boys noticed and started lifting the rods up and plopping the plugs down, thoroughly uninterested. At least they were quiet. And then…
“Can we let more line out?” asked Josh.
“Can we Neil?” came the little echo.
I didn’t care any more. If they wanted to waste their time while I expertly got them in position to catch a big Chinook, so be it, “Go ahead,” I said.
“How many pulls?”
“How many pulls?” came the little echo.
And it was at this point that the mature Tyee rower took over. The rower who, through the years, had learned enough to give them at least somewhat precise instructions as per the number of pulls that would give them any chance of catching a fish.
“Whatever,” I said.
They had been looking back at me when I said it and gleefully turned around and began peeling off line. The plugs went out, without weights, and dug into the shallow surface of about eight feet of water.
I smiled at myself how easily they were amused and kept silent. I rowed contentedly, knowing I had silenced the chatter. Their rod tips bobbed up and down like a divining rod would over Buttle Lake.
And then the fish hit. It took Travis’ rod almost out of his hands as it jetted across the shallows. I rowed to deeper water frantically. The salmon kept peeling line at an incredible pace. And that’s when I finally paused to take it all in. Travis was holding the butt of the rod in one hand, and trying to grab the spinning knobs of the upside down reel with the other. Each time his knuckles entered the tornado, they were ejected with a ‘clackity, clack, clack.”
And Travis and Josh would howl with laughter. Seriously? I told them both to stop laughing and concentrate. To which Travis reached again for the knobs, was again rejected, and again he and Josh broke into laughter.
The line went slack. “Travis,” I leaned forward until my mouth was close to his ears. “Reel! Reel hard!”
And Travis did. Backwards. He was feeding line out. Not taking it in. And when I corrected him, both he and Josh broke out in uncontrolled giggles.
I was thinking of my friend Mike Mackie who has incredibly rowed his young son Landon to two Tyees this year — on a spoon! How did that duo do that?
I didn’t correct Travis’s reel position. I let him be. I realized he was having the time of his life. My preconceived notions of what Tyee fishing should be — a serious and intent battle with a large salmon — dissipated with each laugh and smile that came from those boys. They had no fear of losing that fish. I did. They were relishing the moment. I wasn’t. And then I did.
With the salmon still 30 yards away, Travis and Josh casually discussed how big it might be, how they were going to cook it and all time smiling and laughing. Then Travis let go of the reel and gave his arm a stretch and a shake. I was going to say something, but instead rowed harder to keep the tension. And then I laughed the laugh of a boy. Travis managed to get it close enough for the netting.
And a 26-pound Chinook came into the boat.
They carried the fish from the beach to the clubhouse, still chortling. It was duly weighed and they cleaned it themselves on the cleaning table their dad had built which was a donation from Brown’s Bay Packing.
No it wasn’t a Tyee, it missed the mark by four pounds. But it hit the mark in another way and became clean and pure with the picture my friend Dave Hadden took of Travis.
Travis’s arm hugs the fish of a lifetime. His one shoe is untied and the grin of a champion is pasted on his face.