Big Brook :: Personal Narrative Fishing Essays

Big stick outWhen you leave this place, you will unendingly guess the nights fishin up on Big Brook, my father once told me. And to this twenty-four hours I have never forgotten my experiences up on that microscopic tri andary of the Namakagon River in northern Wisconsin. My father everlastingly dreams of the old age when he would go out with a creel over his shoulder and dumbfound a meal of fish. Work takes too much of his time now, but I remember the times we would go up to Big Brook after work and spend the last hours before the sun pit fishing our favorite holes in hopes for a big trout to bite. I remember this now, many years later, but my memories are still perfectly clear. We would queer home from work, dad would say, Alright, I am goin up to Big Brook, if ya wanna contract with, I am leavin in five. This was our cue, my brothers and I would drop everything we were doing, grab our rods, and chief out to the garden to pick a handful of worms. The garden was forever the best spot for the worms they seemed to love the dark rich soil and always grew the biggest. Even though we dug them every week, at that place would always seem to be more the next time we went out. When we arrived at the meandering stream, papa would say, Alright, I get the first 100 yards downstream, everything else is open season for you exclusively to fight about. My brothers would usu entirelyy get the section just upstream, cause they were bigger, and I didnt have much say in the matter. So there we were, all the guys in the family on the river, my father heading to his favorite spot, my brothers marching upstream together, and I left to make my way downstream, through the berry brush to the beaver pond. When I left the river to walk downstream all the difficulties from the day were left behind. I walked through a grove of aspen, and flavor under a clump of brush I saw a cottontail rabbit, but he knew, if he didnt move I wouldnt see the little guy so I passed quietl y, in hopes not to scare him. As I walked I would be occasionally wafted with the smell of wild roses, or the smell of fresh air that would puff of air through the trees.