Killing A Fish

Ethereal as Winslow Homer’s watercolor flowing onto paper, the canoe drifts on Ragged Mountain Pond, and I cast a fly for trout. Christopher is in another canoe a hundred yards away, he is also fishing. It is early morning and quiet; except for our movements, casting, it is still. The pond is surrounded by dense stands of pine and hemlock. On the far end, a marsh thicket of grass and sedge grows where from higher up the mountain a stream feeds the pond.

My line lays out on the water, the fly at the end of the leader nearly invisible. I cast and drift and wait, slowly I bring the line in and cast again. A brook trout rises and takes the fly and suddenly the line and rod jump, become a direct line to the life force of the fish. To catch it is a matter of maintaining tension on the line, not too much that it would break and not too little that the fish could get the hook from its mouth. It’s a contest the fisherman often does not win.

But this time I net and land the fish, it is about ten inches from nose to tail. I am not fishing to catch and release, rather I am fishing to catch and eat. Nonetheless I wet my hands before holding the fish and once I have a good grasp on it I use a small pair of needle nose pliers to remove the fly from its mouth. The trout is full of life, its colors rich and electric, it struggles for freedom. Its mouth gapes open in the air, out of the water it will asphyxiate.

And so in a few seconds I must choose life or death for this amazing living thing. All of life circles around; asphyxiation would be cruel and so I make my decision and break its neck. Immediately the life is gone, the colors fade. To be intimately connected to the killing is to have the greatest appreciation in the eating. A creature’s life is sacrificed and I eat. Whenever I eat meat I think of the taking and the giving of life. In this is a great gift.

I catch another trout and Christopher catches two as well. We paddle back to shore and head for the cabin. We clean the trout and fry them in butter and eat them for breakfast and they are delicious.

Gordon Bunker

Watercolor of brook trout by John Nichols, 1918.