Gone Fishin'

Timor's family took me fishing on my first night in Sweden. The first time I went fishing, I was five, and I caught the the largest trout ever. That's mostly because it's the only trout I've ever caught, and I fished for another eight years. The family of 6 and I drove down to the lake (in a 1988 compact Volvo) and that's when I saw their fishing rods. There were no reeling or casting mechanisms, so I asked if we were fly fishing. The father, Gammut, then tells me that we're going to go out on the dock and just stick lines in the water 10 feet from the shore. Guess I'm not ending my streak today. But then something amazing happened.

Timor gives me some bread dough, and instructs me to throw tiny pieces of it into the water, as the rest of the family was already doing. After 10 minutes of dough tossing, we broke out the rods, attached a little dough to the hooks, and stuck them in the water. I felt like this crazy idea would break my fishless streak, and I became extremely excited. Almost as soon as the bait hit the water, a fish was caught--by one of the 7-year-old twin girls, Lolita. My excitement grew: if an elementary school girl could catch a fish that easily, a 21 year-old Pomona College educated man could certainly break a 16 year streak of fishing suckitude. Then, Victoria, the other twin caught a fish, then the mother Marina, and then the other pre-teen daughter Deti. Suddenly, the twins were reeling them in left and right. I was half expecting Lolita to just reach into the water and grab one out. Meanwhile, I was confirming that God hated me, as fish kept nibbling the bait off my hook.

Suddenly, my line went slack, and I pulled, and out came the most glorious fish ever! I grabbed it and removed the hook proudly. ''That's cute. Throw it back, it's too small.'' Timor had crushed my achievement, so I frustratedly chucked the fish at a duck in the pond. I felt a little relieved, but these two twin girls had caught about 8 fish at this point, and I had only managed one worthy of being thrown at water fowl. I persevered though, and finally, I caught one worthy of the plastic grocery bag we were keeping the fish in. I got on a roll, and caught three more fish before we ended, and two were even big enough to keep! I'm proud to say I quadrupled my career total of fish in a single day. After that, we ate sausages with cucumber slices, and drank generic orange fanta! It was a superb way to wrap up a magnificent night.