Fishing in Futility

All my long strange life I’ve looked back fondly at certain events from my innocent boyhood, versus the older eccentric soul that I am now. I remember my beloved grandfather Arty (short for Arthur) oh-so-fondly.

Arty was a kindly old thin peculiar chap who seemed obsessed with a sea-theme. Conveniently enough my Uncle Joe even owned his own boat. Being a fairly crooked sleazy politician, Joe did quite well financially. There was even a custom-built bar in his basement; Specifically to show off and grease political palms accordingly. My wonderfully eccentric grandpa Arty would commonly wear a sea captain’s hat everywhere, it was his nature. He loved boats that much but never owned one himself. Joe and Arty would often go out on Lake Erie fishing together, as they were family and actual friends. I was very young, and the memories are not quite as clear as they should be, but the feelings were marvelous, and never forgotten.

At a mere 12 years old as far as fishing I was a complete tenderfoot. I casually mentioned to Christian (my foster father at the time, but far closer to a big brother) that my grandfather had a true love of fishing and Christian decided that we would go to the “Foot of Ferry”, and try my inept young hand at fishing with him.

The Foot of Ferry was an old waterfront park in Buffalo Ny, and had been there since the pyramids possibly. Lots of old worn fishermen hung out there publically wasting their limited years. They dangled lines in the murky water round the clock, rarely ever catching a thing besides license plates and junk, which might have been their true intent.

I had never fished before, so we both thought it might be fun. Christian had a fishing pole of his own and he also borrowed a friend’s pole, so I could try my hand, with his guidance as needed. Since my foster parents didn’t own a motor vehicle and two could not fit on his 10-speed bicycle, we walked to the river since it was all on the west side of Buffalo, straight down West Ferry St to the water.

So happily we were off!

First, we stopped at a small bait shop on Niagara St., and since I’d never been in anything remotely like this before, it seemed utterly fascinating as a young boy. The whole place smelled like old fish mixed with other wonderful earthy natural scents. I caught the scent of dirt, insects, and some smells I couldn’t quite pin down.

The dimly-lit bait shop was small, with murkily-lit bluish aquarium-type tanks scattered all around, immersing the shop in an almost aquatic atmosphere. This place seemed perfect for its purpose. They had loud lively captive crickets, grasshoppers, tiny fish, entire colonies of wriggling slimy worms, and some other small creatures I couldn’t identify. All in all, it was exotically alluring to me. As a boy I was appropriately obsessed with catching crickets, and the sounds and scent of them was everywhere. This shop had a whole colony of them, hopping and happily chirping, oblivious to their dark future as fish bait. Poor little creatures, hopping around with zero control of their eventual fate.

I remember complete enthrallment by all the varieties of life around me. Like stepping inside a nature channel.

Christian paid a low price for a batch of simple worms, nothing fancy. They were fated to end in the mouth of a fish, so they should be cheap anyway no? Kinda disgusting to look at, wiggling and squirming around as they were, but it’s gourmet cuisine for hungry fish I suppose. These doomed-worms were handed over in a small white cardboard box, similar-looking to a cheap small chinese takeout box. They looked like fat but animated noodles bathing in dirt. I watched their pitiful wriggles, being fascinated at their utter helplessness, but they wriggled in vain, destined for a fishy end.

We walked the remainder of the way down Niagara St with our haul of bait, a bucket, and our poles passing plenty of closed businesses, and the few actually open were water-based. Tackle shops, boat sales, and a small tour place for the Niagara river, but mainly there were closed shops, long forgotten and boarded up.

Even back then, the City of Buffalo was in a long-term decline, probably since long before I ever existed in the world. It’s amazing how many places across America are in their death throes right now, and they don’t even realize it. Either economically or socially, take your pick. Many great civilizations have fallen throughout history, some quickly, some at a slow crawl. America in general as a country is more on the slow side of decline, but withering away nonetheless, maybe it’s for the best.

Eventually, we reached W Ferry St and ventured under the overpass, then over the black iron bridge to the waterfront side. This bridge lifts and separates to let larger boats through, always accompanied by a high-pitched warning beforehand. It smelled exactly like oil and old fish.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be walking across this bridge when it lifted to high heaven; not a fun ride I imagine, even if you survive the ascent hanging onto the railing for dear life. We walked across with our poles and bait and made our way onto the narrow stick of land known as the Foot of Ferry. We walked a short distance to a half-empty stone wall, topped at waist height with an ancient, rusted, black metal railing. There, leaning over the railing in various poses, stood several old and grizzled fellow fishermen, or maybe ex-captains? I was never quite sure since the number of fishing caps and captain hats among them seemed equal.

Many of these human fixtures barely moved; they just stood there and would have looked perfectly natural on an old wooden fishing boat, and not a single one seemed less than 60 years old.

They might have been ancient statues eternally manning their fishing poles, and nothing else. Of course, I was perfectly intrigued. The whole area had a rotten fishy smell, and the water below us was dark, deep, and muddy-brown—not particularly inviting for a person or a fish. I was glad I wasn’t there for a casual swim! Ahead of us, beyond the black railing, stood the famous and turbulent Niagara River, wide as a mile, and beyond that, the greatly misunderstood shores of Canada. Looking beyond the scummy brown water that was closest to us, it was surely a majestic sight for a 12-year-old boy to see.

We found a spot for fishing away from the others that looked fairly empty, which, as I was told by Christian, was somehow 'better', with less competition for a finite amount of fishies. He readied his fishing pole, then guided me with basic instructions on how to stab the unfortunate slimy worm onto my hook and cast the line out with a deft hand.

Of course, being a fairly clumsy boy, the first worm immediately fell from my inexperienced grasp as I was attempting to hook it. The squirming seemed highly creepy, and my repulsion opened my hand on reflex alone. Once fallen, this worm promptly got itself lost in the endless leaves and dirt under our feet yet again. This worm had miraculously saved itself through the lens of my own comedic ineptness. Christian shrugged, mentioning “it happens,” and bade me grab another worm from the Chinese takeout box to doom to its painful watery grave. To the next creature’s lousy luck, I attempted exactly that.

I got my hook cleanly through the worm, and how it wriggled then, as I would have if I had a hook thrust through my abdomen. However, for now, I was the 'higher' life form, and he squirmed and danced for me instead. I watched Christian cast his own line, and as I drew my pole back to attempt the same thing and cast the line forward and hopefully far, I felt a hard pull on the line before my forward movement, equal in force to my own exerted efforts.

I glanced back and saw my line hooked on a tall bush that was behind me a few feet. I turned to unhook it and noticed my wormy prisoner was no longer hooked and had liberated itself. Now declared missing in action. I looked down and again saw only leaves, bushes, gravel, and dirt. Not wishing the unfortunate worm’s death, I admit I didn’t look particularly hard for it.

It was a lucky worm after all, assuming it survived the wound. I’m sure it was grateful and thanking whatever gods worms happen to pray to that it was safely wiggling its way back into the soft healing earth, compliments of my personal young ineptness. I quietly wished the worm well.

Christian shrugged and motioned towards the bait box, so I helped myself to the third doomed worm. It seemed a bit bigger and definitely didn’t like having a fishing hook jammed through its moving slimy body, and I can’t really blame it. It didn’t look fun or painless. “Better the worm than me though,” I thought to myself. Christian graciously demonstrated the technique of drawing back the pole to cast it further and get a nice distance to catch a fish. It was kind and patient of him to show me yet again.

I carefully drew my pole back and tried to smoothly but quickly throw it forward, in the same manner as I had just witnessed. I certainly tried to reproduce his performance, but I felt a sudden thrust upward and forward in the back of my pants! I was halfway thrown towards the railing and the fast-moving Niagara River before me.

It was a strong push, as strong as my own effort, and of course, it turned out my own effort caused this. When I drew my line back behind me, the hook had caught in my belt somehow, and thrust me forward, when I made my strong forward throw. Christian caught me by the shoulder as I hit the black railing. As it turned out I had caught only myself in my own damned hook!

I was just like a helpless fish I suppose. Not a good feeling. Christian graciously helped me unhook from my belt, and as per usual, the formerly hooked worm was nowhere to be seen. Yet another escapee, and good for him. Here stood a completely failed young fisherman, who had lost three worms already, and my hook never even hit the water once . The story of my life, is a recurring theme, naturally. I always seem to fail, but in a wholly unconventional or impossible way every damned time.

Christian laughed and I couldn’t blame him a bit. Yet a third worm had escaped my hapless clutches and somehow wriggled its wormy way to life and freedom. Chalk up yet another strange victory for lower life forms over myself. In my clumsiness, I must have been a literal Godsend for the worms in the bait box, so far three of them had wriggled to safety. I was glad for them, yet sad for myself. It seemed like fishing was not exactly in my blood. Not something I was naturally gifted at, not even close.

If I were somehow a fishing boat Captain, my poor vessel would have sunk long ago, with all hands lost. and deservedly so from my own incompetency.

I reached yet for another doomed worm, and this was my fourth try so I HAD to catch a fish right? That was my mentality at the time. This time I slowly reached back, watching carefully that my hook wouldn’t catch on anything, including myself, and I slowly but surely cast my line out into the brown swirling dirty Niagara River.

I successfully sent my line out, and it drifted bobbing in the distance. As of yet, Christian had no bites and mainly watched me attend my own line. After a while, he told me to reel mine in slowly, and maybe I’d get a bite. I reeled it in, of course, carefully and obediently, with no hurry, and brought it home all the way, and no luck, like Christian next to me.

So he proposed we both cast yet again, and very far if possible, and maybe we’d have a bit of luck. Based on trial and error and optimistic chance. As it turns out I did end up having a very strange turn of luck certainly, but not what either one of us ever expected. We both cast our lines, and mine went quite far out, almost one-fifth of the way across the Niagara River this time. This was completely from my perspective of course. I slowly started reeling it in, and immediately felt some resistance, and fairly strong. However, it was not an active pull, and had no real mobile resistance, simply the pull of a weight. I excitedly told Christian of this, and he advised me to slowly reel in what I had, and see where this led. He still had no nibbles whatsoever and watched intently as I eagerly but carefully reeled in my line .

It seemed to drag on the bottom, and I had to move my pole around a lot, as it seemed to get wedged around various debris at the bottom of the river, but even so, I slowly relentlessly pulled it in, fully expecting either an old boot, or a piece of trash, but not a fish surely since there were no opposing movement. To my and my companion’s surprise, when I finally reeled it above the water-line, it turned out to be a very NICE almost new fishing pole! Bright neon green, open reel, and quite expensive, from what I was told. When Christian and I left, we carried no fish home, just three poles vs the two we left with.

So I never actually caught a fish, that day or any other day of my long life, but I caught my own fishing pole using a borrowed pole. Such is the stuff of legends. Seems utterly unbelievable, but it happened to me that day. Christian caught no fish sadly, but I was not unhappy, my catch was pretty good.

Such are the whims of this quirky and odd Universe, that laughs quite often at my antics and misfortunes and adds a few unique twists here and there. By now I’m pretty much used to it. We walked home, back to West Ave. Not a single fish caught, but a good catch for me regardless. It was something I never forgot to this day. The time I went fishing and caught a fishing pole. Another strange story of my impossible life.