Big Brook :: Personal Narrative Fishing Essays

Big Brook â€Å"When you leave this place, you will always remember the nights fishin’ up on Big Brook,† my father once told me. And to this day I have never forgotten my experiences up on that little tributary of the Namakagon River in northern Wisconsin. My father always dreams of the old days when he would go out with a creel over his shoulder and catch a meal of fish. Work takes too much of his time now, but I remember the times we would go up to Big Brook after work and spend the last hours before the sun set fishing our favorite holes in hopes for a big trout to bite. I remember this now, many years later, but my memories are still perfectly clear. We would get home from work, dad would say, â€Å"Alright, I am goin’ up to Big Brook, if ya wanna come with, I am leavin’ in five.† This was our cue, my brothers and I would drop everything we were doing, grab our rods, and head out to the garden to pick a handful of worms. The garden was always the best spot for the worms; they seemed to love the dark rich soil and always grew the biggest. Even though we dug them every week, there would always seem to be more the next time we went out. When we arrived at the meandering stream, Dad would say, â€Å"Alright, I get the first 100 yards downstream, everything else is open season for you all to fight about.† My brothers would usually get the section just upstream, cause they were bigger, and I didn’t have much say in the matter. So there we were, all the guys in the family on the river, my father heading to his favorite spot, my brothers marching upstream together, and I left to make my way downstream, through the blackberry brush to the beaver pond. When I left the river to walk downstream all the difficulties from the day were left behind. I walked through a grove of aspen, and looking under a clump of brush I saw a cottontail rabbit, but he knew, if he didn’t move I wouldn’t see the little guy; so I passed quietly, in hopes not to scare him. As I walked I would be occasionally wafted with the smell of wild roses, or the smell of fresh air that would blow through the trees.