Go Fish
Their dusty Outback hugged the shoulder of 97 around a hairpin turn. Just through the blighted firs, Alistair could see a field of sparkling glitter dancing on Lake Chelan under the midday, desert sun. The car rolled around the lake’s southern tip and found a spot in an empty, nondescript gravel lot. After unloading the poles and tackle, Dan unbuckled Alistair and helped him out of the car. The two made their way across the lake trail and down a hill to a clearing where the shore disappeared at a steep angle into the bright blue water. Dan baited and cast his line. He anchored it in the loose silt with a few kettle-sized rocks that lay nearby before assisting Alistair with his own line. The two sat on the ground against a large rock and stared at the wrinkled surface of the lake, waiting eagerly for the bobbers to flinch. Thirty minutes went by, and neither had seen any movement. They recast their lines further out and then pulled out a deck of cards.
The two played Go Fish for a long while, breaking to quickly recast the line, dip their feet in the water to cool off, or eat a snack. As their shadows elongated, they grew quiet. Dan sprawled out on the ground, at the mercy of the heat, with a ball cap over his face. Alistair drew figures of bare trees in the dirt.
“Any luck?” a curious local called out from the trail a few yards back. His German Shephard bounded down the hill and cantered over to the pair to investigate them. “Sorry!” I usually never see anyone down here anymore, so I stopped worrying about the leash.
“You’re fine; we like dogs.” Dan responded as he stood up and let the dog sniff around. “No, we’ve been out here a few hours and nothing so far.”
“Yeah it’s been like that for a while. That’s why this area is so empty. Lots of people used to come down here on weekends.”
“I heard Lake Chelan was well-stocked. Figured we’d have some luck over here on the east side.”
“It is, but the fish just stopped biting.”
“Are they not hungry?” Alistair asked the man.
“Who knows, buddy. But if you look closely, you can see them now.” He pointed at the water behind where Dan and Alistair stood.
Alistair turned around and looked down at the water. There they were: hundreds of two- to three-foot spotted lake char staring up at them from all directions, as far as they could see. They floated still and erect throughout the water column. At the reaches of Alistair’s visibility, the fish were spaced out in all directions by about a foot, but that distance narrowed the closer the fish were to Alistair and Dan. They were all positioned so that they pointed precisely at the father and son pair as if the pair were powerful magnets and the fish were flecks of iron stuck in their magnetic field.
“Holy shit! How did we not see them before?” Dan stammered.
“Yeah, they do that now; they’re creepy fucking things. C’mon Kai, let’s go.” The man whistled, Kai obediently hurried back to the trail, and the two fell out of view behind the shrubs that grew between the trail and where Alistair and Dan stood.
Dan and Alistair stared at the abundant fish for a moment.
“Dad, they’re not moving. Can you just go in a grab one?”
Dan shuffled over to the water’s edge, squatted for a closer look, and said, “I could try.” He hadn’t tasted fish in a long time and had driven almost two hours to get out here. They were the largest char he’d ever seen. He could already imagine how rich that fatty skin would taste and how crunchy it would feel between his teeth after roasting it in the oven or frying, skin side down, in the cast iron. As creepy as it was, he didn’t want to turn back empty-handed.
Dan slid off his sandals and slowly waded in until the bottom edges of his nylon shorts touched the water. The fish did not seem to move even an inch, as if they were frozen — an extraordinary exercise of buoyancy. Alistair could swear that their gaze followed Dan’s intently the closer he moved towards them.
One char was a few inches from Dan’s knees, looking straight up at him. Dan bent down, dipped his fingers in, and still the fish did not move. The fish let Dan graze its scales but did not divert its gaze. Upclose, Dan could see his gills pulsing. He gripped the fish firmly in his hands and lifted the fish out of the water. The fish’s gills gasped for air, but the fish did not fight his grip. Instead, it relaxed, as if resigned to death.
Carrying a two-foot stringer lined with char, Dan and Alistair walked up the hill back to the car. The local man and Kai, heading back from their lakeside walk, stopped by their Outback.
“You’re kidding me. They started biting again?”
“No, we just grabbed ’em right out of the water. They don’t swim away. I’m tellin’ you, it’s like picking fruit off a tree,” Dan replied.
“Jesus,” he muttered, shaking his head, “I’m going to have to tell the guys. Alright, well, take care and enjoy dinner.”
Alistair and Dan loaded up the Outback and started their journey back to the west side of the Cascades.
Much later that evening, Dan began to dress their Lake Chelan catch. Under the first char’s empty gaze, he opened the gill cover with his left hand, thrust his Kershaw behind the gills, and gently cut from the top to bottom on either side of the gills. As he cut, his left thumb and index fingers tugged at the bronchial arch until the whole pink gill slid neatly out of the cavity. He dropped the gill flesh into the waste bin at his feet. After flipping the fish over and repeating the process on the other side, he plunged the knife into the bottom of the fish just in front of the anal fin and drew the blade toward the mouth until he could reach inside and jerk out the entrails.
After gutting and rinsing out all of the fish, he prepared one for dinner. He scored it; bathed it in olive oil; stuffed it with sage, lemon, and garlic; and seasoned it with plenty of salt and pepper before roasting it.
The fish was as decadent and greasy as Dan had hoped. Dan and Alistair went to bed late and full, pleased that they would eat as much char as they wanted for the next few weeks.
A few months later, at the cusp of fall. Dan and Alistair drove east once again through the Cascades. Just as they emerged from the mountains, the same clear, blue lake greeted them. They parked in the same gravel lot near the southern tip of the lake and made their way down the hill to their lucky spot. Alistair ran ahead to the water’s edge to search the lake for the strange fish.
“I don’t see any, Dad!”
“Well, we had bait in there last time, and they didn’t show up for a while.”
Dad baited his line and cast it into the water. He then pulled out the deck of cards and offered to teach Alistair how to play Rummy. After a few hours of playing cards, enjoying snacks, and cooling off in the lake, they did not spot a single fish. Needing to get back through the mountains before an early autumn sunset, Dan called it for the day, and the two packed up and made their way back to the car.
As they were loading up the Outback, a familiar German Shephard ran over and greeted them eagerly. Moments later, his owner appeared on the path and waved.
“Back again?”
“Thought we’d try for more, but no luck this time,” Dan yelled.
“Yeah, news of those suicide fish spread fast around here. No fish left at all.”
“Damn,” Dad said, dropping his head.
“Sorry to you came all that way. Safe drive back.” The man whistled, and Kai obediently rushed back to the trail.
Dan buckled Alistair in the back seat, and the two pulled out of the empty lot and began their drive west back through the mountains, empty-handed.
