OCTOBER,
2000
It's been pretty
quiet up here on the lake this week. Summer's
over and all the large boats have headed
south for the winter. The locks
will close for the season soon and the
big guys don't want to get trapped in
the lakes or canals.
There was a little
bit of excitement last Saturday. Tommy
Migliori, over at Tommy's Haul-Em-Out
Landing, and Stinky Williams, from the
U-Sink-Em-We-Salvage Marina invited Father
Migliori to go fishing with them. As
you may know, Father Migliori is the
priest of the local Catholic church here
in Brewerton.
Father Migliori
hasn't done much fishing and was very
excited to be invited. Pete Sokal
over at the Bait 'n' Brew on Route 11
said that Father came in on Thursday
and spent almost one hundred dollars
on fishing tackle. Given the Father's
reputation of frugality, this was very
unusual. So on Saturday morning
he showed up at Haul-Em-Out Landing bright
and early, which sort of annoyed Tommy
and Stinky Williams, as they are not
used to "bright and early" on a Saturday
morning. They loaded up the boat
with all the gear and tackle and headed
out.
Included in the
gear were two cases of beer, which disturbed
Father Migliori (knowing his propensity
for sobriety). But, since he was
their invited guest, he kept quiet. They
anchored just off Walnut Point and proceeded
to fish. As the morning progressed Tommy
and Stinky were doing okay--fishing-wise
and beer-wise. Tommy had caught
three bass and a walleye, Stinky had
a good stringer of perch going, and half
of one of the cases of beer was already
gone. Father Migliori wasn't doing
so good. He had only caught one
small bass all morning and was worrying
that he had wasted his money on the fishing
tackle he had bought. Tommy kept
offering a beer to Father Migliori in
hopes that it would cheer him up, but
being a teetotaler, Father politely refused.
Just as they were
getting ready to eat lunch, Father Migliori
hooked into something big--so big that
it began to drag the boat, anchor and
all, out toward the middle of the lake. Stinky
was sure that it had to be a monster
walleye. Father Migliori was so
excited his hands were shaking and he
had a hard time holding onto the fishing
rod. "Hold on tight, Father, you
don't want to lose this one!" Tommy said,
as he tried to start the boat's engine
and pull in the anchor at the same time. Tommy
almost dropped his beer.
After about 30 minutes
of struggle with the fish, Father Migliori
had cranked it in close enough so that
they could see what it was. It
was a huge carp. "Cut the line.
We don't want that thing in the boat!" shouted
Tommy and Stinky. "No!" said Father Migliori, "I'm
going to have this fish mounted and put
it in the Parish Hall. It's the first
big fish I've ever caught". The
battle to land the fish went on for another
15 minutes, but that was nothing compared
to what happened once they got the fish
in the boat. It must have weighed
30 pounds and was about 4 feet long. Once
it hit the floor of the boat it began
to flip and flop around furiously. Fishing
poles, tackle boxes, and beer cans were
flying everywhere. Father jumped
on the fish to hold it down and keep
it from getting back into the water,
while Stinky hit it in the head with
a canoe paddle trying to knock it out
or kill it. Finally, when it was
all said and done, Tommy's favorite spinning
reel had gone overboard, Father Migliori's
new tackle box had gone overboard, all
the beer had gone overboard, but Father
had his fish. Seeing as how all
the beer was gone, Tommy and Stinky decided
to end that fishing trip right there. Father
Migliori was a little upset. He
wanted to catch another big carp so as
to have matching fish mounts at either
end of the Parsih Hall, but Tommy and
Stinky would have none of that.
All week long the
talk of the town was about Father's fishing
trip and the big carp that was now hanging
in the Parish Hall of the Catholic church. In
his sermon on Sunday morning, Father
Migliori said that he had always preached
that "If you give a man a fish he will
eat for a day, but if you teach him how
to fish, he will eat for the rest of
his life", but now he was going to have
to change that to "If you give a man
a fish he will eat for a day, but if
you teach him how to fish, he will just
sit in a boat and drink beer all day".
That's the news
from Oneida Lake, where all the men like
to drink beer while fishing, all the
women go to church on Sunday, and all
the children do okay in math.
Copyright © 2000, J. W. Kelly. All
rights reserved.
