Another "Fish" Story

 

Another time fishing with my Father we went far back along the Tennessee River fishing along the slues that flooded the marshy area.  I define a slue fishing hole as one to which you must drive a 1960 Dodge four door sedan on a “road” comprised of at least five holes of water that cover the path with increasing levels of water that rise from somewhere around mid door to just below the windows of the car but the car does continue to run after passing through the miry pools and no noticeable water leaks into the floorboards.  Why did we not have a truck you might ask, because my folks were preachers and they had to have a car so the carpenter truck was the car (with a ladder tied on the top and the backend of a truck that had been made into a trailer hooked on the back), the funeral procession leader was the car, and the fishing and hunting vehicle was the car.  My Mother was 4 feet 10 inches tall and couldn’t get in a truck.

 Anyway, back to the slue.  When we arrived we parked and baited, sent out our lines.  Night clawers, crickets, raw chicken livers were are usual bait and sometimes we seined for minnows in a creek before we went fishing and kept them in our minnow bucket.  It just depended on what was biting.  On this particular day I don’t remember it being bad or good fishing so I imagine we were catching some.  We would stop to eat.  Now, today I would GermEx  Sarah Morgan’s hands like preparing for surgery but then we just washed off in the slue water, shook off the wet and opened the cans of Vienna sausages and ripped apart the cracker sleeve and drove into it with our fingers.  Fishing makes you starving! That is not properly written but that is what it makes you. We would drink from a big thermos of ice cold water that Daddy took when he was out working or in the outdoors.  He would drink from the thermos and I’d drink from the cap and he would always say, awwww, nothing quiches your thirst like water, good, old water.  Then he’d smile and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.  I often wonder what he would think of all the bottled water people buy and drink today.  After eating and toward afternoon, one of the lines started getting some action.  I don’t remember whose pole it was but I started reeling it in-something felt big on the other end and then it felt wrong-the line went slack not loose off just changed.  The catch was still on but the momentum had-switched.  I watched as that line came toward the bank and me without me cranking that reel an inch.  Then from out of that murky water came a reptilian running on all fours.  As it ran past me I saw its yardstick long slimy silhouette black inky body and tail head over the rocks and into the woods.  Before the line could tighten, Daddy cut it and the overgrown snaky salamander slithered away-which was pretty much where I’d hoped it would go.  Open mouthed I looked at the spot where it came from the water and then retraced its path to where it disappeared and then I looked at my Dad.  I expected a like look from him but all he said was, Waterdog.   I said what?  Waterdog.   That was a waterdog.   I looked at him again and blinked my eyes and over the years I have fashioned in my mind the question I formed in that look.  You mean to tell me that in all these years we’ve been fishing, in all these places so far off the beaten path we’ve been together, and in all the things we’d seen you knew about this creature and you hadn’t thought to tell me that one day I might just pull something out of the water that could motor onto dry land on its own. That might have been a piece of information that could have helped in this situation. But I didn’t ask.  He wouldn’t have gotten mad-it was just his way.  Momma said the Massengales were like that, they talked and then they didn’t.  I’m sort of like that myself.  Sarah Morgan and I were watching one of those shows were the haggard looking fisherman travels the globe trying to hook mythical prey.  This show was about a creature that was written about and was the subject of tribal art but very vaguely reported.  So we watch until the last five minutes of the show and low and behold the guy caught it.  A waterdog!  An Asiatic Waterdog.  Sarah Morgan looked up at me in disbelief that such a living thing existed.  I said, yes, I caught one once upon a time.  I’ve got to take that girl fishing!