The Blue Sunfish

"Wow. I'm impressed."

"But then fish, at least the teleosts..."

"What's that?" I interjected.

"Bony fish, as opposed to the cartilaginous fish like sharks and skates and rays, nevertheless, the bony fish -- the teleosts have had five hundred million years of evolutionary time to differentiate into what we find today. They were around for a hundred million years before one of them decided to crawl out of the water to become lizards, birds, amphibians and mammals. Or so the theory goes."

"Okay."

"In fact, there are more species of fish than there are of all lizards, birds, amphibians and mammals combined."

"And counting I guess."

"That's correct, Kevin. And we're going to count one more."

"Cool."

Although we were heading the wrong way on 599 it just seemed, because of the two-lane highway construction, that we were more likely to find a couple of spots where the cube van could have been pulled off. Still, nothing seemed quite familiar. The woods were exactly the same, broken up by an expanse of water now and again, numerous creeks and swamps, a few rocky outcrops here and there, and bush, bush, bush.

"Rose, I'm sorry I can't find the magic fishing spot going the wrong way down the highway."

There was bewilderment on her face.

"It's going to be after six by the time we make to back to Sioux Lookout."

She nodded in agreement as she studied the map.

"I suggest," I said, "we go back to Sioux Lookout and stay at the motel that I stayed at last night and simply try again in the morning."

"Seems reasonable." She answered dryly.

"I'm sorry I messed up, it's a wasted day."

"Oh, I don't think all is lost," she grinned looking up at me.

"Dinner first?" Just a little inuendo in my voice to be sure.

"I'll need to freshen up first," she smiled.

The manager didn't even blink an eye as I check back into the Sunset Inn, this time with a blue and gold coloured young lady in tow, even when she insisted that her credit card be used.

"I'm sorry is not quite the Intercontinental," I said as we trundled down the hall with Rose's big black suitcase rolling behind here and me with my carry-on bag slung over my shoulder.

"It's perfect." She smiled as I opened the door.

As soon as the door closed, we were on each other. Lips to lips. My hands all over her ass, her hands all over my shoulders and neck, then down to my growing tent.

"I'm sorry, I'm just coming off my period," she whispered.

My reply, I'm sure, was incomprehensible. My lips wouldn't leave hers. We ripped each other's clothes off as we jumped onto the bed, she onto her back. My fingers and mouth immediately found her irresistible chocolate nipples on flat pancake mounds. Her right hand managed to reach to my now erect cock.

I smothered myself in the delight that was Rosalind Di Donato. She tugged at my cock with one hand and rubbed her clit with the other. After a few moments she whispered, "Kevin, sit on the edge of the bed." She slipped off the bed, sunk to her knees on the floor and positioned herself between my legs as I sat up. Immediately, her right hand was on my shaft and my cockhead was in her warm mouth. I couldn't help but stare in rapt attention as her left hand darted from one nipple to the other and then down to her crotch as she twirled her clit for a moment, then back to her nipples. All the time she was pounding my cock and twirling her tongue, lips and checks on me in a wet hot frothy motion.

I didn't stand a chance.

She came a nanosecond before I did. Her entire torso shook as I erupted onto her wet red face, followed immediately onto her flat titties and brown nipples. The look on her face was greedy satisfaction. I hated to think of what my twisted, distorted face must have looked like as I came. She cooed in delight as she smeared cum all over her face and tits with my rapidly softening cock. How could this be real? Rose's whole body shook again as she diddled herself to orgasm a second time.

I was hyperventilating as I tried to regain my senses. Rose sat up on her knees while caressing her tits and nipples, "Thank you," she mouthed with her eyes closed and face tilted upwards towards me. I gently cupped her face with both hands, bent over and kissed her beautiful lips softly. A cummy wet bridge of saliva broke as I pulled away from the kiss.

Rose did indeed manage to freshen up, as did I, before heading off to Dick's Grillhouse for dinner. "I'm sorry it's not Plachutta's or Figlmuller," I said after we ordered. The medium rare striploin steaks, with fries, previously frozen veggies and side salads were okay, at best. Before we finished eating, I could see that Rose's eyes were blinking.

"How long have you been up today?" I asked as I held a forkful of salad.

She shook her head, "Oh, I don't know, twenty-four hours at least." She gulped back some beer as her eyes blinked again.

We finished dinner and made our way back to the room. She was barely naked and tucked into the bed before she was sound asleep. I didn't last much longer, either. I recall wondering if I, at the very least, caught my blue fish as I spooned her glorious naked body with mine.

The next morning was a bit overcast, but quite warm. After packing up and checking out we made our way to Roy Lane's for toasted western sandwiches with ketchup and sliced tomato, and large coffees to go. This time we were going to do this right.

Up the highway we went towards Savant Lake. Just past the airport there was a green road sign: Savant Lake 111 Pickle Lake 258 (in kms).

Within minutes we came across a spot on the side of the road; I slowed down, Rose looked at me in anticipation. We pulled off and shut down the engine. "Maybe," I said, "I certainly didn't recognize it as we drove past yesterday." We jumped out of the truck as the sun broke through the clouds.

We fished using worms for a few minutes. We caught a couple of small pikes before I managed to hook a small sunfish. Rose was literally jumping up and down as I reeled it in. After pulling it out of the water, Rose grabbed a hold of the little fish in her hand and sighed. It certainly didn't appear to be blue. "Lepomis gibbosus, common pumpkinseed, I'm afraid."

We fished on for a few minutes, managing to catch and release four more pumpkinseeds. A small pike managed to cut through the monofilament below the leader, making off with the worm and barbless hook. I knew that pike really need to have a robust leader at the business end of the fishing line. We decided to pack up and move on. "How's your coffee," I asked as we got underway and rescued our cups from the cupholders in the truck. "Still a bit warm," was Rose's reply.

After a few silent minutes Rose spoke up, "It's curious, you know."

"What is?"

"I checked the literature, the last Lepomis identified was in 1883. That was L. symmetricus—the bantam sunfish, which is found basically in the backwaters of Louisiana and a few other very isolated southern US locales. About half of the Lepomis were identified seventy-five years or so before that, and the other half go right back to Linnaeus himself."

"Who? What?"

"The guy that came up with the whole taxonomic system itself. Identifying and naming species. And that was in... I don't know... the mid seventeen-hundreds?"

"Wow."

"Here's the thing. Typically, the number of species found in any given environment decreases as one approaches the polar caps. Think of the diversity of life found in Costa Rica in contrast to what is found in the high arctic."

"I've never been to Costa Rica, nor the high arctic for that matter."

"Nevertheless, I think you get what I'm saying."

"I do. And you're right, it is remarkable." I hoped I didn't sound too sarcastic.

"We may just find the first Lepomis in over a hundred and thirty years. It would be astounding!"

"Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves?" I asked.

"Perhaps, but you did buy champagne," she smiled at me brightly. I loved the way she pronounced 'Cham-pag-ne' in her slight Germanic accent. She made it sound so elegant, so exotic.

"True, that I did," I tried to recover my senses.

"What should I name it?"

The question startled me, "The blue fish? After yourself I guess."

"No, I've already named several, including after myself."

"Really? Oh yes, the goby."

"Nevertheless..."

"I guess the mysterious benefactor would have a say in that."

"No, he wouldn't. That's part of our agreement. Although, I should consider that."

"So, what were you thinking?"

"Amanda, after your niece."

"Really?"

"Why not? She caught the fish. She's the gateway to this whole endeavor."

I thought for a moment, "I'm sure she would be delighted." I paused for a second before I added, "You know, Rose, you are a most thoughtful, kind and generous person."

"Yeah, but I scare men off."

"Oh god."

About forty-five minutes after pulling out of Sioux Lookout for the second time in two days I slowed down and pulled off to the left. Again, she turned to me with exited anticipation all over her face.

"We definitely stopped here. It may not be where the blue sunfish was caught, but we definitely stopped here." I still had most of my coffee, although it was getting cold. We both hopped out of the truck.

It was obvious why I had stopped there. There was a little bit of a clearing on the side of the road, enough to safely park away from the roadway, and enough room to pull out a couple of fold-up chairs and immediate access to a small, albeit boggy, body of water, dotted with lily pads. A culvert ran under the highway. It wasn't a designated picnic area, and the usual sign that designated the stream or body of water that just crossed the highway simply did not exist. It was too insignificant.

"Amanda fished off of that rock," I pointed, "Marcie and I would have set up the lawn chairs right here," I said pointing, "the backdrop to the picture is the moving van. The pick-up truck is parked in the exact same spot."

Rose retrieved her laptop from the truck and studied the screen for a moment, looked up, moved around a bit. "Stand here," she said, she moved again, shuffled a bit, then said, "Hold your arm out towards me." I did. "I would say that the shadows on Amada's and your sister's pictures are precisely where they should be."

"Wow." Cleaver woman. "I think we should set up camp somewhere around here and make a real effort at catching the blue fish."

"I agree," she answered.

Where to camp? I didn't want to just park on the side of the road and trundle off. The last thing we needed was a bunch of yahoos finding a loaded campsite and truck next to the road while the occupants are way the hell off somewhere.

We determined that the same corner of the culvert/highway intersection we were on was the most promising. The bog was really quite expansive, stretching out in a wide vee in front of us. For sure, I thought, there will be pike in those waters. Blue sunfish, too, I hoped.

Luckily, I brought my chainsaw, and luckily, too, the Honda Ridgeline pickup truck was black.

It took about two hours but we managed to back the pick-up truck half along a little rise of smoothed out granite rock and tuck it deep into the bush. With the cut small trees and saplings that we needed to clear the path, we even managed to camouflage whatever chrome was on the truck. We cleared an area to pitch the 9x9 tent a few feet away. The tent was brown. A fire pit location was found, shielded by rock from the road. We were invisible in the woods, even though we were a hundred and fifty feet or so from the edge of the highway.

"Our little love-nest," I said to Rose.

She had that big toothy smile within a smile thing happening. I sensed she was truly delighted.

Naturally, I was worried about bugs and bears.

I had to try a couple of casts before we finished setting up camp. Rose sat next to me in excited anticipation. I attached a small weedless lure.

Nothing. A few casts later, still nothing.

"I think we better finish setting up camp before we get too involved in the expedition."

"You do that," she said, "I'll get the traps set up."

"Wha?" The mid-afternoon sun was beating down on us.

I watched Rose in amusement as she retrieved six clear plastic water bottles from her black suitcase. The bottles were stacked together and had obviously been worked on prior to coming on the expedition. The entire bottle stack contained six fairly large fishing bobbers, which she pulled out and set aside. One end of each bottle was cut off, leaving the handle and bottle cap end intact. She also had six additional modified bottle caps. Each bottle segment had numerous holes neatly drilled into them. The modified bottle ends and the cutoff bottle ends each had a pattern of smaller holes around their circumference. The six modified cap ends had the handles and caps cut off with the resulting hole neatly widened and slightly splayed open. I watched Rose insert a modified cap end into each bottle upside down, or inside out, as it were, and then using clear monofilament fishing line firmly stitch together and tie off the two pieces with her slender fingers.

I had to admit I was intrigued. "It saved me a lot of packing space," she said as she worked away. Made perfect sense.

I finished setting up the tent, gathered some wood for a small fire and laid out a foam floor for the tent with two sleeping bags zipped together into one on top.

Rose found some small stones and placed them in each trap, then tied a ten foot or so length of heavier string to each bottle trap handle and one of the bobbers at the other end.

"You did get some white bread, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"Can I have three or four slices, and can you bring the worms, too?"

I did. Everything else that was remotely food related, including the second Styrofoam container of worms was packed and locked into the truck's cab. She broke up the bread and stuffed some in each trap.

"Do you mind cutting some worms up for me? You know how I feel about it." I obliged and shoved the worm pieces into the traps, too. She then retrieved a few lily pads and shoved them into the traps.

We both changed into shorts and tee-shirts before we set off in the canoe. I could make out her glorious nipples and flat boobs through the bra-free tee-shirt material. Again, it was a bright blue shit. Her shorts were cut-off jeans, though.

We lifted the canoe out of the back of the truck and launched it into the weedy pond together without cargo of fish traps, ultralight fishing rods, my little tackle box, a net, worms, lifejackets and a six pack of Coors, which were surprisingly still cold. Rose put her life jacket on. I didn't.

It was unbelievably still. And hot. In fact, for early July in Northern Ontario, it was stinking hot. And sunny.

Even the mosquitoes and the last of the blackfly were hiding. Everything was ultra-quiet.

In actuality, it was kinda magical, strange, for sure.

I paddled us out into the boggy water just a few feet from our little camp. Rose dropped each trap into the water and then secured the bobber end onto a little stick or a clump of reeds. "The bobbers are just so we can find the traps," she said.

I had to admit I was skeptical. I'd just not seen anything like that before. Made perfect sense, though.

After my little mishap with the little pike earlier I had changed the leaders on both Rose's and my ultra-lite rods. After all, the idea was to catch and eat fish for dinner, too. Bass maybe. Regular sunfish are good, too.

We had started with worms suspended off the bottom. Nothing. We changed to small jigs with worms, pulling them up and letting them slowly drop down. Nothing. We tried in shallower water, squat. Deeper water. Nada. I switched to a small floating fly. Rose switched to a small, weedless spoon. After at least an hour and a half we weren't catching anything, blue or otherwise.

"They're spooked," I suggested in a whispered tone.

Rose nodded, in a quiet voice she said, "The fish are hiding, they're umwelts are fully tuned in. It's probably best if we just sit here quietly and let everything just settle down."

"Their what?" I asked mystified.

"Umwelt."

"What the hell is an umwelt?"

Rose smiled and said quietly, "I'll explain later."

Okay fine. I nodded, rested my rod across my lap and just watched. Rose did, too, at the front of the canoe, turned around facing me.

After about three or four minutes, I thought I saw some reeds move behind and to Rose's right side. I watched the spot. A minute later, the reed moved again, or so I thought, then a minute later for sure, it moved again. I knew with the little floating fly on my rod I had no chance of casting to the spot. She had a weedless spoon on her line.

Silently I pointed to Rose. I signaled two fingers from my right hand into my eyes. She understood. With my rod still resting across my lap I held up both hands with all ten fingers followed by my right hand with four, then I pointed to my foot.

She understood.

I pointed in the direction of the movement.

Gently she twisted her torso and lifted her rod while unlocking the reel. She pointed the rod tip in the general direction I showed, slowly nodding it up and down, and looked back at me. With my thumb I motioned for her to cast a little further behind her.

In a quick motion Rose flicked the little gold weedless spoon exactly where it needed to go.

Loud splash!

"Aghh!" She set the hook.

The drag on Rose's rod started wheezing angrily as the rod curved.

I laughed, "It's a pike, for sure!" I knew right away it wasn't a little hammerhead like the one that cut my line.

"Aghhh!" she hung onto the rod which was bent into a 'C' as the fish dove into deeper water. It kept running, "Oh no!"

"Let it go Rose! Let it go!" Wisely she did. It ran on the line drag for nearly the full length of the short spool before it settled into some sort of safe space. "Rose, it's four-pound test line. Luckily I changed the leader, but it's still monofilament. Normally one would have a steel leader fishing for pike."

Her eyes were wide open, she looked scared as she held onto the rod. Her expressive lips were speechless.

"Rose, I think it's time that I taught you a thing or two about fish."

She didn't say anything, she just stared at me with a shocked expression on her face.

"Rose, it's a barbless hook. Whatever happens do not let the line go slack. Keep some tension but not too much. I'm going to paddle us over to where the fish is, you reel it in. I want you to take up the slack, rather than pull the fish towards you."

She nodded, as I stowed away my rod and picked up the paddle. "That's it, keep the tension on the line. Let the rod do the work, not the line. You need to keep that rod flexed, just a little, all the time."

As I paddled the canoe towards where the fish hid, Rose kept reeling in the line, occasionally the drag would release a little more line. "Is it moving?" I asked.

"I can feel something."

"It's probably shaking it's head."

"Maybe."

"With a little lure like that, it may have swallowed it. Let's just hope it doesn't bite through the leader."

Although I had to muscle the canoe through a few serious clumps of reeds I managed to get us to within twenty feet of where the line disappeared in the water. It wasn't where the fish was. The line was held in place because it went under a thick stick that was submerged just below the surface. "Hang on." I swung the boat around, reached down and pulled at the stick, almost tipping the canoe on its side. I could move it, but not lift it. "It's part of a branch."

"On no."

"Okay, Rose, you're going to have to pass the entire fishing rod, underneath that branch. I'll lean the other way."

I maneuvered the canoe so the branch was right next to Rose. She tipped the end of the rod under the stick and pushed the top third under before pulling herself back up. "There's no way, I can't reach."