What Michael Copperman’s Fishing Lessons Reveal About Life Will Surprise You
“These are just kids,” Uncle Bill declared. “They deserve the fun.”
Soon we had a stringer full of trout bleeding in the shallows—Bill had to come and kill each of our catches, then pull the barbed hooks free from the fish’s sides and fins, which we weren’t strong enough to manage. We’d never caught so many fish. My brother, who’d never liked fishing much in the first place, grew tired, and went back into the trees to play. My aunt quit, mumbled something about this not really being fishing, and then walked along the bank to photograph trees or mist with her digital camera. I’d never really caught many fish, and so greed overtook me—I threw my line hard, pulled hard, desperate to show Uncle Bill my skill. He counted the still bodies. “Ok, Michael. One more is the limit. Let’s see what you’ve got!”
