Baseball and Opera

Glenn, MI

July 28, 2020

The waves that rose and the rain that fell Sunday night continued thru the small hours Monday morning. By sunrise, the rain had gone…but sea, sky, and wind remained ominous.

As I contemplated our options for the day, the phone rang. After a wishing me good morning, the caller got right to the point.

“I was just on the water. It’s a little choppy, but looks like it could be OK this afternoon. I say we give it a shot if you’re up for it.”

Seeing the whitecaps offshore, hearing the waves crash below, and watching trees bend overhead, I said the first thing that came to my mind. 

“Exactly how far away are you?”

“You’re in Glenn, right?”

I confirmed that we are.

“In St Joseph. About thirty minutes, maybe forty.”

“OK. Because it looks dicey here. You sure today will work? The next few days are open for us as well, so it’s no problem to wait if the weather is bad.”

“No. I think today is good. Besides, you never know. Tomorrow and Wednesday could be worse than we think. I tell you what. I’ll call you at 2:00, and let you know if it looks bad. If so, we’ll try again tomorrow. If not, we can go at 3:00 this afternoon.”

I had arranged for David and me to go fishing on Lake Michigan. The day before, the forecast was for rough weather and tough currents. Kevin Roberts, our charter captain, suggested we wait till later in the week, and I readily agreed. 

When I picked up the phone yesterday morning, in the wake and threat of storms, I was surprised he had changed his mind. By the time I hung up, he had changed mine. We were going.

I was concerned not only for safety, but for comfort. While some people are not affected by motion sickness, others get green watching an olive bob in a martini. For five hours yesterday, we were the olive. For the first three, the gin was still being shaken. But neither of us got sick.

We left Brian’s Marina in St Joseph under grey skies and damp air. Kevin eased us out of the St Joseph River, and onto the open lake…which was alive with motion. We rode out about four miles, over a depth of 125-150 feet, where fish had recently been biting.

We set ten poles and varying lengths of line. After about half were out, one of them was pulled. David grabbed the reel. On the other end, energetic as Santiago’s marlin, was a steelhead trout. 

Popping periodically from the waves, the twelve-pound fish fought valiantly, but was no match for my son. Within minutes, the trophy was held aloft, and dropped into the waiting cooler. David’s first fish. Kevin then finished setting the remaining lines.

We watched them with eager anticipation, on the edge of our seats. We were ready at a moment’s notice for the aquatic onslaught that a fish caught so soon must portend.

With only three of us on the boat, how would we cover the simultaneous spinning of so many reels? I looked at our cooler, knowing it would be too small for the haul we were destined to make.

Then…the minutes passed, and we sank slowly into our chairs. Rain had ceased, but clouds filled the sky. In the distance was the outline of the southwest Michigan shore. Around us was the enormity of the lake.

The waves rolled, and an hour passed. No bites. I looked again at the cooler, and was relieved we had already caught a fish. If nothing else, the trip would not be for naught. Then, one of the deep lines began to spin. David returned to battle stations.

The foe was 670 feet away, running with the current, and away from us. After several minutes, David pulled him a couple hundred feet closer, but needed relief. I took the wheel. 

It then became apparent how my frozen shoulder…with a touch age and a dash of lockdown lethargy…had weakened my right arm. Pulling against the current, and what I hoped for my sake was a very strong fish, I brought the prey a hundred feet closer. David again took the reins, riding the beast to within 125 feet of the boat. 

Being generous, or perhaps fatigued, David allowed his feeble father the pleasure of the ultimate triumph. But the prize seemed to get no closer. Finally, a couple minutes later, the first fin popped over the waves. 

As I reeled him closer, we noticed he was caught in another line. I felt better. Large fish, swimming away, string current, and pulling another line. Even the most seasoned seaman, with two good arms, would have struggled. Of that, I had convinced myself to be certain. 

Knowing fishermen, like golfers, tend to exaggerate their feats, and that the weight of a catch, like the length of a drive, tends to increase with time, I wanted to ensure we avoided falling into hyperbolic habits. I asked Kevin how large a fish he thought we’d hauled.

His first response ran counter to the integrity I wanted to instill. 

“Whatever you want.”

He wasn’t understanding. This wasn’t modern art. I wanted to be somewhat realistic. He gave the catch a closer look.

“The largest we see out here is about thirty pounds. This one isn’t quite that big, but it’s bigger than many. It barely fits outstretched in the cooler, which means it’s at least twenty pounds.”

Perfect. That’s all I needed. 

In rough waves under darkened skies, we had hauled a twenty-two pound King Salmon across more than two football fields worth of great lake gulf stream! 

With pride earned and dignity intact, we dropped it in the cooler…atop the 15 pound trout.

Then, once more, we waited. As clouds slowly began to thin, the sun started to appear and whitecaps to recede. As another half hour passed, an analogy from historian Manuel Marquez-Sterling came to mind. His passions were baseball and opera…both what he called “epiphanic arts”. 

In opera, the audience endures endless recitatives and little plot movement in anticipation of the aria. When it arrives, the patrons awaken, and are riveted. That is the epiphany of the act. 

Baseball also features long periods of little apparent action. Pitchers look in, batter steps out, fielders stand around. Seeds are spit, crotches are grabbed, asses slapped. To the trained eye, there is underlying strategy at play, and anxiety in anticipation. But to many observers, it is pure tedium. Then…suddenly…the ball is hit, and a flurry of action ensues. Fans scream, cheer, and high-five, and remember why they came.

Fishing is the same. 

Every line we’d thrown out was again being ignored, as if from the Columbia chess champ at a Soho night club. 

But we were approaching the late innings, and it was time to rally. By now the clouds had gone, the waves were more rolling than choppy, and water was a deep blue. 

From it, one of the lines popped, and David was called back to action. Then, an adjacent reel began to spin, and I took the wheel. A doubleheader! Within minutes, a couple lake trout, about six and 12 pounds, joined the 18 and 25 pound fish already in the box.

A couple other bites followed, but both got away. As we pulled in the lines, one held a baby trout, below the legal limit and well below our exacting standards. Back he went.

We rode 45 minutes back to port, and pulled our bounty from the boat. Before the fish were filleted, we lined them up, like dead outlaws outside a western saloon. Photos were snapped, pride swelled. David called his mother, and told her she need not buy fish for a while. Lake Michigan, however, may need to re-stock.

After the double-header, when we’d caught the ten and fifteen pound lake trout, I asked David how many fish he’d hoped to catch during the afternoon.

“One.”

But after catching it so soon, he feared there’d be no more. As they came, he was relieved, and having the time of his life. Having hauled in fifty pounds of fish, and despite two getting away and one being tossed back, David was hooked.

JD