Fishergarten glanced nervously around the dimly lit
restaurant. The FisherStranger opposite took a long drag on his cigarette and
exhaled slowly, thinking, letting the smoke curl upward into the hanging lamp
with the faux-Tiffany shade. No one dared to tell him about local smoking
ordinances. He just wasn’t the type.
“Where do you want this to happen?” he finally asked.
“Eleven Mile Reservoir.”
“When?”
“On a Thursday. It’s not so crowded.”
“It won’t be cheap,” he said, squinting. “You got what I
told you?”
“Of course,” Fishergarten said. “Not on me, though.”
He briefly bared his teeth in a smile. Then, harshly, “Lady,
when I tie up a loose end on something terminal, it stays tied. There’s no
undoing it. You sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes,” Fishergarten said firmly. “I just don’t want to do it
myself.”
“I want 70 percent by the weekend,” he added, “and the rest after.”
“Done!” Fishergarten was relieved. Finally, she had found a
way around a tiresome logistic. But that night, FisherSpouse was less enthused.
“You did what?” he asked quietly.
“Well,” Fishergarten said. “You know how we spend every
FisherSpouse looked a little pale and, picking up his phone,
left the table. Later, Fishergarten thought she heard him talking, something
about police or fraud, she wasn’t clear which. It was understandable why he
might get all knotted up at the new hire, though. FisherSpouse ties his own
knots. And likely, he had forgotten what happens with a novice knotter.
It was a windy and chilly March day as Fishergarten dug through FisherSpouse’s tackle box, seeking, as was her custom, a replacement
lure. She found a blue beauty, slightly scuffed from generations of loving
fisher-use. With frozen fingers, she carefully pulled it out and began to tie
it onto her line.
“Want some help with that knot?” FisherSpouse asked.
“No, I got this,” Fishergarten said, recalling pretty much
the knot-tying section of “Fishing for Dummies.”
Fishergarten secured the knot, then reeled up a little line
and drew back. She brought the rod around and cast. Distantly, she saw the gleaming
blue lure arc gracefully and plop into the water.
“Holy cow!” she said to FisherSpouse. “Check it out – I’m
halfway across the lake!”
Excited, she began to reel in the slack. And reel. And then,
the line ended, in an empty way. She looked at FisherSpouse. “My uncle gave me
that,” he said.
Evidently, Fishergarten would need to conduct more knot-tying
trials. Previous testing in her dining-room-table-like lab showed that
knot-tying was much like published academic studies in psychology -- she had surprising
results that she could not always replicate. But her testing differed in that reducing line
friction meant she had to spit on her work. A lot.
Discouraged, she finally sought out the experts. Sitting in
FisherSis’s kitchen, she poured out her frustration, even as she poured in a
Pabst Blue Ribbon.
“I just don’t get it,” she said to FisherSis and FisherSIL,
who between them had coached generations of Colorado FisherKids. “I just can’t
learn the knots. Tell me, FisherSages, how do I tie a knot that holds? And is
more sanitary?”
Silently, FisherSis grabbed her rod, threaded the line
through a snap, and tied five overhand knots to hold it on.
“There,” she said, tightening
the final one. “That oughta hold.”
“Wait,” said Fishergarten, marveling at the seeming
simplicity. “You can do that?”
FisherSis and FisherSIL glanced at each other. “We just go
to fish and enjoy the scenery,” FisherSis said. “We have fun.”
“Oh,” said Fishergarten. She would need some time to process
that. She also made a mental note to maybe cancel the research funding she’d
raised.
So what about you, FisherFriends? What knots tie you in
knots? Which do you favor? Tell us in the comments section below.
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