The Blue Sunfish

I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. "Or, it could be a sasquatch, now that would be scary."

Kevvv...inn."

I laughed out loud.

"It's not funny," she insisted.

"Rose, whatever is out there belongs out there. All of our foodstuffs, including the worms, are safely locked inside the truck. We'll be fine. Besides, if a big bear decides that he wants to rip open this tent, I'll hit him with this." I was pitch black.

"What's that?"

"My shoe..."

"Kevvv-inn!"

"Haha! Relax, Rose, just relax and go back to sleep."

We both lay awake for a while listening. I know I did.

*****

The next morning it was a bit cloudy and a little cooler. Rose delighted me with a naked swim while I made us breakfast: ried eggs on Wonder Bread with individually wrapped Kraft cheese slices, sliced dill pickle and mustard. Instant coffee was made with boiled swamp water, and we each had a kid's juice box, Fruit Punch.

"I'm sorry it's not quite Viennese food..."

"It's wonderful," she countered, firmly holding her big sandwich with both hands. She had a little mustard on her chin. What a doll.

Rose cleaned up as I took a turn having a quick dip into the bog. There was almost a place where one could take two or three strokes before getting tangled up in vegetation. It worked.

The next task at hand was to go check the traps. Loaded up with fishing gear, the loaf of Wonder Bread and life jackets, I pushed the canoe off the bank with Rose sitting in the front seat. Within a few strokes we glided up to the first trap. Rose pulled it out. There were a couple of minnows in it.

Holding it up as the water poured from the holes she said, "Dace, I believe."

"Okay, whatever." She undid the bottle cap, dumped the water and minnows out, broke up a half of a slice of bread and shoved the bits into the trap, did it back up and tossed it back into the water.

Second trap, nothing. Third, more Dace. Fourth trap, "Ohh!!! Look!" There were three little flat fish in it. "Eureka!" she yelled. The look on her face was amazing, she was overjoyed, "Oh my god!"

"Is it them?" I couldn't contain my enthusiasm.

She took a careful look inside the trap as water poured out of each hole, "I think... I think it is!" Her eyes were like saucers. From my vantage point at the back of the canoe, they did seem to be kind of a bluish grey colour.

"Fantastic."

The trap was returned to the water. Trap five had one more blue fish, trap six was empty. The two traps with blue fish were towed back to our camp and left in the water tied to one of the seat brackets.

"You did get the items on my list," she said rather than asked as we clambered out of the canoe.

"Of course I did." She was referring to my expedition shopping list.

"Good, can we get the big fish cage out?" I did. She had asked that I find that largest sport fish cage I could find with the smallest size mesh. The one that I found was 3'x 4'x 3' deep, rectangular, with epoxy coated wire mesh and a hinged top, having a 'floating' foam frame. As it turned out, it didn't to float because the water where we put it wasn't quite three foot deep. Rose managed to transfer three of the fish into the basket, the fourth went into a clear plastic baggie with a little water.

I watched in amusement as Rose transformed herself fully into science nerd mode. She was in her element, such a joy to see. Using a magnifying glass, Rose carefully observed the bagged fish and made notes in a little hard covered notebook. She photographed the fish several times with her iPhone, trying to get the light just right. After releasing the blue sunfish into the cage with the others and after retying and re-baiting the two fish traps, we launched off in the canoe armed with her phone, notebook and a little leather case.

"We've got some work to do," she stated flatly.

After the two traps were replaced, I watched Rose take and record the water temperature at several depths, the air temperature. She pulled at clumps of vegetation and photographed it, took samples of the water, the core sediment, I guessed she was trying to determine the rate of water flow.

"Rose do you mind if I just cast this way?"

"No, go right ahead," she seemed to dismiss me. Rose's ultra-light rod was already set up with a small barbless hook and bobber. I added a small bit of worm and tossed the line as far as I could. My rod was equipped with a tiny weedless spoon, which I sent straight into the lily pads.

She kept at it, jotting down the weather conditions, time, location of the sun, air pressure I guessed and who knows what else.

"This is really cool, Rose." I said proudly. She just stared at me with pen in hand in anticipation of an explanation. "I'm actually part of a scientific expedition."

She laughed, "In Ontario yet."

Rose's little bobber started jiggling. Slowly I reeled it in. "It's a sunfish! It blue." I exclaimed. I thought it was a little larger than the other four, but not by much.

"Just hold on Kevin. Try not to touch the fish." She passed me the empty minnow bucket from her end of the canoe. "Try to have the fish jump off the hook by itself without touching it."

"Okay." I scooped some water into the bucket and set it down on the floor of the canoe. I held the flopping little fish by the tiny hook shaft above the bucket's open top door. Sure enough, the little blue fish wiggled off the hook and dropped into the bucket. "Mission accomplished Madam. Mission accomplished." The bucket was tied to my seat frame and the inner perforated bucket liner, with blue fish inside, was lowered onto the water.

"Well done Mr. Mayfield, well done." Clearly, she watched the whole operation.

After re-baiting and casting I asked Rose how many blue fish she hoped to catch. She was hoping for twenty-four. The weedless spoon was producing nothing so I decided to change that out for a barbless hook and a piece of worm. Rose watched as I reconfigured the tackle.

"I think it's probably best," she said nonchalantly.

"What is?"

"That we're absolutely quiet, not casting about."

"Why's that?"

"Their umwelt's are tuned out, just a little."

"Well there you go using that word again."

She folded up her notebook and put all of her thermometers and such back into the leather case. "I'll take my fishing rod now," she said holding out her hand smiling.

"There's an animal behavior term, the umwelt, which refers to the sum total of an animal's sensory world. We have one..."

"Yeah, the five senses." I interjected.

"Yes, but we have more than five."

"What? Like ESP - extra sensory perception?"

"No. In addition to the five senses, that is: touch, vision, hearing, smell and taste we also have a sense of balance, a sense of humour, pleasure, pain, a sense of responsibility, some people have an innate sense of direction, others lack that completely, or how about just plain sensibility? Again, something completely lacking in certain people."

"Okay," I chuckled.

"Fish have a completely different set of sensory tools with which they comprehend their environment, their umwelt. It's hard for us to understand what their environment looks and feels like because we are confined by our own umwelt."

"I think I understand."

"They have a lateral line, they can feel the vibrations from the fish next to them, their eyes tend to have more cones than ours, they can see more light. Some fish can hear down to one hertz, we don't know why exactly, but that ability was developed for some reason, long distance communication maybe. And their sense of smell is unbelievable."

"Really?" I didn't know that.

"We've got to collect these fish today," she said. I just stared at her. "We didn't catch them yesterday, did we?"

"Do you think it was just too sunny yesterday?" I asked.

"Yes, that, and too still."

"Excuse my ignorance, but what does stillness have to do with it? Was it the air pressure?"

"No not the air pressure. At least, I don't think so. There was a study done, I think it was in bluegills, it could have been pumpkinseeds; nevertheless, it's probably typical for all Lepomis and many other species. The bluegills seem to use light reflection from the surface to extend their optical range past an obstruction. Pike may do that, too. If it's still, everyone's umwelt is in high alert. If there is a little breeze, the surface reflection is disturbed, giving the fish a little bit of cover and a little comfort to venture forth from their safe hiding place. They go looking for food, sometimes for a mate, they interact with fish, giving and receiving cues whether it's a potential danger alert or, for example, the sudden abundance of a food bonanza."

I looked at her funny, but didn't say a word.

"If I'm a little blue sunfish and I see my sisters finding larvae in the mud, maybe I should be checking the mud, too."

"Okay that makes sense to me, but if there is a little ripple on the surface, doesn't that make it a little more dangerous for our little blue sunfish to venture out? If he can't readily detect Mr. Pike, why would he risk going out?"

"There's certainly a trade off, but I think the short answer is that he's hungry."

"Okay. Hang on. If it's hot and sunny and still, everybody's umwelt is cranked up and everybody's hiding. If I toss a lure into the water, every fish should be aware that potential food is right there waiting to be plucked. Right? It should be a feeding frenzy."

"But it's not. From the fish's perspective, nothing should be moving. If it is, it's not food."

"Even if it's a worm?"

"Not worth the risk of coming out of the safe space."

"Weird."

"From the angler's perspective, the fish simply aren't biting."

"Believe me, that bit I understand."

"From the fish's perspective, I'll wait until the sun goes down, so that when I go out in search of food, I'll have a more reasonable chance of coming back alive."

"But then Mr. Pike is out there looking for them, too."

"In the bright sunshine, Mr. Pike has the advantage. As the sun goes down, the odds shift. Remember, these fish have had eons to work out their survival strategies."

"So, it's different today because of a little cloud cover?"

"Yes, or I should say, most likely yes, that and enough of a little breeze to slightly disturb the surface of the water. The view looking up from the water below is completely different than our perception. The slightest disturbance and the refracted light dances wildly."

"Hmm..."

We fished silently for a moment.

"Wait a minute," I said, "I've been in a situation before. And I'm sure it was sunny. I've caught sunfish after sunfish after sunfish, with just a worm and a hook and eight year old kids banging around in a boat in waters much like this," I pointed to the marsh, "I'm literally pulling their brother out of the water and they're basically fighting to get hooked. How do you explain that?"

"It's very simple. A hook, or a net for that matter, is not a natural predator. They don't have a defense against that, per se. What they are getting are cues, through their umwelt senses, and from their community, that it's a feeding frenzy, and a safe one at that. They'll pile on each other to get to the food source. It's hormones, it's visual clues, vibratory clues. Free pizza—come and get it while it's hot. But I can guarantee you, if Mr. Pike swims by, they're gone."

"All makes perfect sense to me."

By the time we broke off fishing, because Rose really needed to pee and we were getting hungry, we had a grand total of fourteen blue sunfish including the two additional ones caught in the traps. The two dace and the maniacal little pike were all tossed back.

As we sat eating our gourmet lunch of pepperoni sticks, sour cream and onion potato chips, dill pickles, energy bars and Fruit Punch children's juice boxes, Rose piped up and said, "I need to go to Sioux Lookout, that's the last place I had a cell phone signal."

"What, right now? I'm pretty sure we have everything we need. Maybe we can use another loaf of Wonder Bread, but that's about it. We haven't even opened the other container of worms."

"No, not today. But I have to make final arrangements for my flights back home."

"How's that going to work?"

"Hopefully our benefactor will get his Learjet to Winnipeg, I had to fly commercial to get here."

"Oh, you poor thing," I interjected.

"It's not my jet. I have absolutely no control over it."

"Okay fine, I'll stay here and keep everything safe. You take the truck."

Reluctantly she stated, "I don't have a valid driver's license."

"What?"

"I don't need one in Vienna," she answered sheepishly.

"Okay, I'll go, you stay and guard the camp."

"Well, unless you can speak German..."

"I can't."

"So, we'll both have to go; it's not that far. Sorry. I'm sure we can hide everything here for a few hours. They need a couple of days' notice."

"Okay."

"We can do it now, but I'd still like to try to catch twenty-four fish."

That's what we did. Rose and I paddled back out into the pond and resumed fishing with the little barbless hooks and small bits of worm. We managed to get a real sense of the marshy pond's size and how the water flowed. The pond was fed through the culvert under the highway; visually, that side of the pond seemed a bit smaller than our side. At the far end was a long, clearly well-established beaver pond, with yet more marsh on the other side, extending for at least a half a mile.

Slowly but surely, we kept on catching more little blue fish and returned to the big fish cage to empty out the minnow bucket before, as Rose pointed out, they would start getting aggressive to one another. The largest one was perhaps three inches long, the smallest half that. "Not exactly what you would call a sport fish," I mentioned.

"Well, their family is; nevertheless, they will make great aquarium fish."

Rose managed to catch yet another one and have it hop off the hook and straight into the minnow bucket. "I believe that's twenty-four now."

"I would say then that we are done, and there's a bottle of champagne waiting for us."

She smiled, "Before we open up the champagne, let's do our run into Sioux Lookout."

Back at the camp, the fish were unloaded, the brush hiding the Ridgeline was removed and we slowly bounced our way out of the forest and onto the highway. It was already late in the afternoon.

"I'm puzzled, Rose," I said nonchalantly as we drove into town, "I just don't understand how a good looking woman like you could have such bad luck at relationships both when you were a kid and now. And just set aside the whole breast thing for now."

"Whole breast thing? Whole? Not half or a quarter?"

"C'mon."

"You see how sensitive I am?"

I simply exhaled audibly but said nothing.

We drove on for a few silent minutes. "On my very first day in Junior High, in Anaheim, two girls walked into the girl's toilet where I was washing my hands. They ran out screaming 'There's a boy in the girls' washroom!' I ran home crying."

"But you don't even remotely have any features that could be construed as masculine."

"Explain that to a traumatized thirteen-year-old girl."

"But eventually you made friends."

"Of course I did. Other nerdy, outcast, social misfits. Just like me. We even had our own clique: life's discard pile."

"Oh come on. You turned out okay. I'm sure your parents are proud of you."

"That I became a professor? Yes. That I've so far failed bring any progeny into the world, whether through a stable relationship or not? Definitely no."

"Through a stable relationship? What? They'd want you to become a single mom?"

"They have no grandchildren. I'm their only hope. I had a brother, but he died when we lived in Rochester. He was seven."

"That must have been hard."

"A dump truck jumped the curb and ran over the little boy on his new two-wheel bike. It happened right in front of our house."

"Oh my god."

She burst out crying, "I was supposed to be watching him."

"Oh my god!" I put my arm around her and pulled her as close as I could before the seatbelt checked the progress. My eyes pooled with tears, too.

I rubbed her back gently trying to calm her down. How devastating that must have been for her and her whole family.

"They've never really forgiven me," she sobbed. "They've said the words many, many times," she moaned, "but I know that deep in their hearts, it's still my fault."

She cried for a few minutes while I hugged her as much as I could in the cab of the pick-up truck and tried to comfort her. Eventually she drew away a few tears and took a few deep breaths.

"I'm so sorry, Rose."

"It's my fault, I'm sorry."

I few silent moments passed before I suggested, "Perhaps you're just blaming yourself unfairly."

"I know it wasn't my fault," she sniffled, "but I can't help but second guess that moment."

"You saw it happen?"

"Yes! I was on my bike right in front of him." She completely broke down weeping again.

So did I. "You poor, poor little thing." While trying to comfort her and get a hold of my own emotions, I couldn't help but think how traumatizing an event that had to have been for her and how such an event had to have ingrained itself into her psyche. Was she deep down afraid of relationships, just in case she landed up killing it again?

I could see she was trying to regain her composure. "How old were you?"

"Nine," she answered while giving her nose a rub.

I took a deep breath while shaking my head from side to side. "I simply don't know what to say."

She sat up a little, took a deep breath and stated, "There's no doubt in my mind that that unfortunate event has had a profound impact on me as a person, on my upbringing, my entire worldview, on my ability or inability to develop close friendships and relationships and has stifled the relationship that I've had with my parents ever since. In a very tangible manner, my brother was killed, but I was the one that was left alone, and hurt."

I had never seen anyone seem so frightened or so vulnerable as Rose did at that moment. Maybe that was why men ran away from her. Maybe others had seen the emotional baggage that she carried, too. Maybe they saw how her character, her very essence, was twisted back on itself to maintain some semblance of integrity.

"There's an inner strength that you have," I said to her, "that perhaps you can't see from your side of your lovely brown eyes." She gazed at me with some bewilderment. "To have repaired yourself, mentally and emotionally, after that tragedy and all the other challenges that life has thrown at you and to come out, on the other side of it all, as a successful, stable, poised, intelligent and beautiful woman."

"Hmm." She cleared her throat. "That's very nice of you to say, Kevin. I'm not sure about the stable part, or the poised part and certainly not the beautiful part, but I'm glad you think so. Oh, did I mention? I really like your penis, Kevin."

"Ha! Ha! Good god, you're crazy." We passed the entrance to the airport.

"Especially when it's erupting all over me."

"You're right! It's like Tourrettes."

Rose pulled out her cell phone, "Ah, I've got a signal."

"That's great, you make your phone calls and I'll get some gas." With that, I pulled into a Petro Canada station. We both jumped out of the truck to go about our business. I could hear her talking in German, her other arm gesticulating in the air. Then she was talking in English, as I went inside to pay for the gas, and then back to German on my way out. While waiting for her to finish her phone calls, I used my phone to find a restaurant in town.

"I didn't mean to wake Laszlo up," she said as she climbed back into truck, "I forgot the time difference."

"There's a slight complication in that if I want to fly on the LearJet, it has to be the day after tomorrow because he's going to be using his jet for a few days after that. So I've made an arrangement with a local air line to pick me up at one o'clock the day after tomorrow and fly me to Winnipeg."