Do Largemouth Bass Like Provolone?

A couple of months ago, in an effort to help my nine-year-old son earn one of his Cub Scout badges, I took him fishing. Were it not for the fact that I wanted to be a good dad and help my son in his scouting endeavors, this is not an activity that I ever would have initiated, as these days, my desire to catch a fish is only a smidgen higher than my desire to catch influenza.

As a youth, catching a fish was something that I longed to do, but failed attempt after failed attempt left me bitter and scarred. There was the time when I was about 12 that I went fishing with my dad. I have the image of the lake we went to permanently etched in my brain. We got there, walked to the end of the pier, put our small plastic baggie of bait and hooks down and a strong gust of wind promptly blew the baggie into the lake. Within moments the lake’s current took the baggie containing all of our supplies too far out for us to retrieve it. The fishing trip was over before it ever really began. I cried.

Then there was the time when I was about 13 that my parents enrolled me in a four-week fishing class for kids at Kingsborough Community College, conveniently located right on the water in Manhattan Beach. The class was held every Saturday morning throughout November. The first week there was no fishing—only instruction on how to use all of your fishing equipment. The second week I had a nasty cold and had to stay home. The third week my mom said it was too chilly out for a frail boy like me to stand on a blustery pier for an hour considering I just got over a nasty cold the week before. The fourth week my mom said it was still too frigid out for a lad such as me, but I pleaded and pointed out this was my final opportunity to catch a fish. My mom finally relented and after ensuring I was insulated by layer after layer of thermal underwear, woolen sweaters, and burlap sacks, she had me put on my parka and took me to the class. Unfortunately, I had missed two weeks of sea-worthy tips from my instructor and ended up catching nothing while I watched my classmates reel in enough sea life to stock the Fulton Fish Market for a month. I cried.

Then there was the time when I was 14 that I went fishing with my brother Steve in the deepest reaches of Long Island. I have told this sad tale before, so I will not rehash the gory details again, but you can read about it here if you are so inclined. As you might imagine, at the very end I cried.

So while my history with fishing was not a pleasant one, I sucked it up to take my son for the sake of his development as a Cub Scout. His scout leader had already done all the pre-work with the boys—learning about types of fish, understanding fishing regulations, and even making a rudimentary fishing pole—so all that was left to do was actually go fishing. His leader—probably sensing I was not exactly Captain Ahab—said all we had to do was go to a nearby fishing pond, put some cheese on his hook, let him cast his line into the water and stand there for 20 minutes. If he did this, he would earn his “A Bear Goes Fishing” award.

The morning of our fishing trip I looked in the fridge for some cheese. My choices were cheddar, Swiss or provolone. I wondered which kind the fish would more often encounter in the wild and I realized that in general it was unlikely that fish would have good access to dairy. I was sad for them, as I’m a big fan of cheese. I settled on provolone, figuring it was the mildest of the three and would be a good introductory cheese for them. When I told my son we would use the provolone, he got a big kick out of this.

“Provolone,” he said, stretching out the final “O” and chuckling to himself.

We went to Desert Breeze Park, a few miles from our house. We had been to this park several times before, but never for the fishing. According to the sign we read when we got there, the park contained rainbow trout, channel catfish, largemouth bass, sunfish, and grass carp. Great! Lots of options. I was hoping one of these fish would be a fan of provolone.

We walked around the lake until we found a good spot. I opened up our bait box, which contained nothing more than two slices of provolone. I ripped off a small piece and put it on the hook. Excitedly, my son cast his line and stood there with a wide grin on his face.

I didn’t have high hopes that my son would catch anything and I braced myself for the very real possibility of ending this trip empty handed and in tears like all of the fishing excursions of my youth. After about ten minutes of standing there, my son pulled his line out and we watched as the provolone slipped off the hook into the lake. My son immediately started laughing and said, “Provolone,” with that drawn out final “O.” He shook his head amusedly as we rebaited the hook with the cheese.

He cast his line again and we stood there pleasantly chatting about this and that.

“Would you be surprised if I caught a fish wearing a collar? Like some kid lost his pet fish,” he joked.

“Yeah, that would be a surprise,” I said.

“This is fun,” he said, staring happily into the lake.

As I stood there watching my son contentedly holding his fishing pole, I thought maybe I should temper his expectations about catching a fish. I’m no marine biologist, but the more I contemplated it, the less convinced I was that there might be a largemouth bass lurking in this lake who happened to have a hankering for provolone.

“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” I said. “Just don’t be too disappointed if you don’t end up catching a fish.”

“I don’t want to catch a fish,” he said.

“Wait—what? Why not?” I asked, taken aback.

“Because if I catch it, I’ll have to touch it to take it off the hook and that’s just gross,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Good point. So you’d be perfectly happy if none of the fish go for your provolone?” I asked, somewhat relieved.

“Yes. Besides, I don’t think fish would really eat provolone,” he said, laughing.

We ended up hanging out at the lake for close to an hour, casually chatting while my son went through the motions of fishing. Every ten minutes or so he would pull his line out of the water so we could put a fresh piece of provolone on his fishing hook. Finally, when there was only a little bit of cheese left, my son said, “Let’s feed the ducks.” About 20 yards away there were a few ducks in the lake, so we strolled over and my son ripped off bits of cheese and tossed it toward the water fowl. Every time he did it, he would say “provolone,” and chuckle. The ducks were much keener on the provolone than the fish seemed to be. Once all our cheese was gone we headed back to the car.

“This was really fun,” my son said. “We should do it again. But next time, let’s use cheddar.”

I laughed so hard, I cried. Fishing trip complete.

National Siblings Day

One of the many interesting nuances of social media is that every day is now proclaimed to be “National Something-or-other Day.” Every morning that I login to Twitter I find out that we’re celebrating something new—National Puppy Day, National Beer Day, National Phillips Head Screwdriver Day—basically if it’s a noun they’ve got a day for it.

I don’t think twice about most of these days (besides, who even uses Phillips head screwdrivers anymore?) but today’s day gave me pause. Today, April 10, 2016, has been proclaimed by the internet gods as National Siblings Day. That one actually makes sense. We have a day to celebrate our mothers and our fathers, so why not our siblings? I have two older brothers and by golly they deserve some appreciation.

Of course, since I’m just finding out about National Siblings Day on the actual day, it’s too late to send my brothers a gift. Had I known about this day in advance I might have gone down to my local haberdashery shop and purchased them each a…um…uh…I don’t actually know what a haberdashery shop sells—Cigars? Hats? Woolen mittens? The point is, in the absence of a physical present, I will be posting this public appreciation for all the world to see. (Or at least for the 37 people who click on my blog to see.)

My oldest brother, Steve, is eleven years my senior. He taught me many things over the years like how to throw a football, why The Planet of the Apes is the greatest movie in the history of mankind, and how to get a Yodel smashed on your back and take it like a man.

Great Steve Brotherly Moment: When I was about 14 years old, Steve took me fishing. We had never gone fishing before, but for some reason I got it in my mind that I wanted to try to catch a fish, so Steve happily took me to a lake to give it a try. I have no idea if the lake we went to was, in fact, intended for fishing, or if there was any kind of aquatic life living in this lake at all, but Steve found a lake for us and we went, brand new fishing gear in hand. We waded into the lake, cast our lines, and waited. And waited. And waited some more. I don’t know if we waited for 20 minutes or two hours, but we never got even the faintest hint of a bite. At some point I started getting upset about our lack of success and Steve started to realize it was more likely for us to get hit square in the mug with a meteorite than it was for us to catch a fish. It was at this point that Steve dropped his fishing pole and started aggressively slapping the water. On the verge of tears, I looked at him and asked what he was doing. “This is how bears catch fish,” he said. My brother is a large man—about six feet tall and husky—and is not unlike a bear in his configuration, so I actually thought maybe this could work. I got out of the water, put down my gear and watched him flail around, grunting and groaning like a grizzly that rides the short bus. Of course he didn’t catch a fish, but his ridiculous display did cheer me up and took my mind off our empty bucket.

Mark, the middle brother, is seven years older than me. It is through Mark that I developed a love for The Beatles, Woody Allen movies, and the finer points of sarcasm.

Great Mark Brotherly Moment: When I was a junior in high school I went to a toga party at my friend Rob’s house on a night when his parents were out of town. Rob was a year ahead of me in school and I actually didn’t know him all that well, but what 16-year-old is going to pass up the opportunity to go to a toga party? Knowing that the party was going to go on pretty late, the idea was for all of us to sleep over at his house. But my mom, whose photo was next to the word “overprotective” in the Oxford-English Dictionary, didn’t know Rob or his parents, so I told her I was sleeping over at Chris’s house. My mom knew his mom, so this seemed like a safe lie. And, since Chris lived around the corner from Rob and was at the toga party as well, I figured close enough. Mark, of course, wasn’t at this party, but he knew I was going and he knew about my lie. I told Mark everything. The party went off without a hitch (other than the odd discomfort of trying to use fitted sheets for a toga) and my cover story seemed to have worked…for about three days. Unfortunately, what I never considered was the possibility of my mom running into Chris’s mom at parent-teacher conferences and thanking her for letting me sleep over her house. Oops! When my mom came home she had a look in her eye that I assumed related to the fact that I got a 16 (yes, out of 100) on my trigonometry midterm. But no, she said she spoke to Chris’s mom and where the hell was I last Saturday night? Trapped! I desperately looked at Mark who knew my lie and immediately went about distracting my mom. I don’t remember what he said or did, what suddenly urgent matter he concocted, but somehow, inexplicably he quickly got my mom out of the room saving me from her instant wrath. This gave me enough time to come up with a more comprehensive cover story for when she came back (Chris and I went to the movies and got home after his mom had gone to bed—I left the next morning before she got up, so she never knew I was there) and manage to avoid my doom. Yep, Mark always had my back.

So on this National Siblings Day I say “Thank you!” to Steve and Mark! Although you’re both taller than me, I still love you anyway.