Creative Nonfiction

Perch

When I was a kid we went fishing on the Saginaw Bay lots of times. It was just me and Dad that day in 1965 ‘cause my older brother who usually went with us was in the Army, stationed in Korea. Dad woke me up in the dark fog that morning. He was already dressed in the green workpants and shirt he always wore, and I put on my jeans and t-shirt and hurried to the kitchen. He made us bacon, eggs, and fried potatoes for breakfast, so we would have a full belly to carry us through the morning. For later he made some ground bologna sandwiches on Spatz white bread, wrapped in waxed paper and sealed in his metal lunch box to keep them dry.

Dad had a twelve-foot wooden boat with a 3.5 horse power Evinrude motor. It was dark gray and heavy and set very low in the water. Being so low in the water bothered me ‘cause it seemed we only had four to five inches before water would come over the sides. It could splash into the boat easy if it was windy and the waves were high, but we’d bail water with two coffee cans we always kept there. Even though the motor had its work cut out for it–it only went about five miles an hour, if it wasn’t too windy–it got the job done.

The perch bite was on, and my dad was on it. It was all about the food, and the fun of fishing together, and the food. My family ate a lot of fish and wild game ‘cause we weren’t always able to buy everything we wanted from the grocery store. But we all knew we were eating good in the neighborhood, better than the kids that lived round me. My family knew where that food came from, and most of the time we had a great time together getting it. Dad came from a family of dairy farmers that was very poor. They’d worked hard for the little they had, so Dad appreciated everything he had. Along with whatever they’d raised and grown on their farm, his family had hunted and fished. That’s why hunting and fishing got passed down to my brothers and me. None of the other kids in the neighborhood had a dad like ours who took their kids hunting and fishing all the time.

That morning we towed the boat behind Dad’s red-and-white ‘59 Ford Fairlane. It was one of the newest cars he’d ever had. My dad loved that car. We launched out of Quanicassee, about twenty miles east of Bay City. That was a favorite spot to launch the boat ‘cause it was remote, so there were not many people at the boat launch to deal with. Dad never liked being round crowds of people. Less people to see him take a snort of Seagrams 7 and wash it back with a gulp of Geyers beer. I liked Geyers too.

When we launched the boat from the gravel landing, the sun was coming up and starting to burn off the fog. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and watched. It was beautiful. I loved being with my dad, just me and him on the water. We were heading for the shipping lanes six or seven miles out in Lake Huron. It was a little cool that morning, but as the sun rose up higher in the sky, it warmed up. We only putted along, so it took forever to get out to our fishing spot.

Finally, we got to the shipping lanes where the bigger perch lived. In no time we were pulling perch that were twelve to fourteen inches, some smaller, but we threw them back. We were out there until early in the afternoon, and by then our cooler was almost full of perch.

I watched the weather change. Storms were brewing up and coming across the bay. One of them was heading our way. You could smell the rain in the air as the dark clouds rolled, and my stomach churned too. Dad was in no hurry to leave ‘cause we were catching fish like crazy, but soon we had no choice.

Anyone who knows the Saginaw Bay knows that it’s a dangerous place to be when a storm hits ‘cause it’s so shallow. Shallow makes for bigger waves, and the swells got bigger when the wind picked up.

Dad told me, “Old Timer,” as he called all of us boys, “pull up the anchor. We gotta go.”

I watched the waves rolling under our little boat get bigger and bigger as I pulled up the anchor. They made the anchor seem extra heavy. I turned and saw a look on my father’s face I’d never seen before: flush went to white. Dad started the motor and slowly turned the boat round toward shore, miles away.

We knew we were in trouble ‘cause with the fierce wind, the storm was building fast. The waves started washing up over the back of the boat. I bailed water with the minnow pail since it was bigger than the coffee cans. But I couldn’t get ahead.

“We can’t keep goin’ like this. We’re taking on too much water,“ Dad said. “We need to turn the boat round, head into the waves.“

He looked me in the eyes and said, “I need you to get up and sit on the bow of the boat.”

I sat on the front seat by the bow.

“No, I need you to sit on the bow of the boat.”

I didn’t question my father. His word was law. I sat on the bow of the boat, with my feet dangling over the front of it, holding on tight to the old Buick hood ornament from a car Dad used to have. This is what we tied our anchor rope to. But this time he took the anchor rope and laced it round my hands so I couldn’t fall out.

We would putt our way back toward shore until the next big set of swells came on us. Then Dad would have to turn the boat round, pointing the bow at the waves to keep them from swamping us. With my legs wrapped round the bow of the boat, I held on tight, terrified.

As we rose up over the gray-brown waves, some of them ten feet high, I looked behind me. In the back of the boat, Dad was steering the motor with one hand, bailing water with the other. He was so much lower than me when we went over the swells, he looked to be twenty feet away. Now it was cold, really cold, and the rain was coming down so hard it felt like bees stinging me all over. I shivered.

“We’ll be okay, as long as we don’t let the waves swamp us,” Dad yelled.

I wasn’t so sure.

It was a long, slow trip. It seemed we could only go for a couple minutes toward land before Dad had to turn the boat against the swells coming our way. After a half hour or so of us turning the boat into the waves and then putting toward shore and doing it over and over again, my fear began to fade. All I knew was that I was with my dad and he’d never let anything bad happen to me.

One time when we were turning into the swells, I felt calm and realized it was kinda fun to be on the bow, heading face first into these gigantic waves. Helping Dad make sure our boat didn’t get swamped and sink made me proud, and I wanted my dad to be proud of me. I began to yell “Yahoooo” as we rode into each swell. I was having fun, but I also wanted to show my father I wasn’t afraid. We’d already gone over some forty giant waves, so I knew if we kept doing the same thing, we’d get to shore safe sometime.

It seemed hours before we saw land ahead. Then the color came back to Dad’s face, so I knew for sure we’d be okay. When we drove up onto the boat landing, our boat was almost full of water. Dad untied my stiff hands from the hood ornament. Tears were pouring down his face, and I was crying too. He hugged me but never said a word. We just hugged each other.

Then Dad went to the car and pulled out his pint of Seagrams 7 from under the front seat. He tipped it back and gulped about half the bottle. He chased it with a beer. He handed the Seagrams 7 to me. I’d never drank straight whisky before, but round the campfire my dad had sometimes poured it into my Hires root beer. I took a big swig, and it took everything I had not to throw it up.

We loaded up the boat on the trailer, pulled it out of the water, and headed home. It was a very quiet ride from Bay City to Saginaw. Dad finished off the Seagrams 7. In his own roundabout way, he suggested that it might not be a good idea to tell Mom about our day out on the bay. After all, we were just coming home with a cooler full of perch from another good day of fishing.

I knew Mom would’ve let him have it for staying out too long with bad weather coming on us, so we said nothing about it. Scaling and scaling, we cleaned fish for what seemed like the rest of the day. We put the perch in recycled waxed cardboard milk cartons filled with water and put them in the freezer. No air, no freezer burn.

We kept out enough for a fish fry that night. Mom did it the old-school way. She rolled the perch in flour with a little salt and pepper and fried them in butter in the black iron skillet. They were the best perch I ever ate, along with homemade coleslaw and French fries. We all ate our fill. I could tell Dad was wondering if I was gonna spill the beans at the dinner table, but I’m glad I didn’t. My dad was happy, my mom was happy, and I was happy. That’s all I cared about.

“Perch” was first published in 2022 in the Dunes Review.