Words: Tommy Cody 2016-12-16 14:37:52
I killed the first trout I ever caught—an 11-inch brown behind the local YMCA baseball field in the shadow of the backstop and snack shack. My memory is not of the take or the fight, but the sight of it lying on ice in a cooler in my parents’ garage, its golden brown and red dappling faded to gray and rust. I did not eat the fish. I wanted it taxidermied and mounted. I wanted a trophy. My father capitulated and found a taxidermist willing to mount such a small trout. Up on the wall it went and there it has stayed for 16 years. At the time, I saw the fish as a testament to an accomplishment years in the making. I had finally broken through and more would come. My fishing idol, Flip Pallot, always released his fish but he would understand, right? I am sure he mounted his first permit, right? I took pride in that fish for about a year, then, for my 11th birthday I received a membership to Trout Unlimited. I started flipping through magazines and continued dutifully watching Flip on TV. Every video, every show and every article extolled the cardinal virtue of catch and release. As I learned more about conservation, the brown, mounted on a pocked piece of driftwood, began to gaze upon me, unblinking, in judgment. Guilt started to weigh heavy and the necessary conditions for a mortal sin spun round my mind. A grave matter: Yes, I had killed a living thing for no other reason than to prop it on drywall. Intent: Had I intended to kill the trout? Yes. Clarity of mind: Did I have full possession of my wits when I made the decision? I was excited, high on adrenaline and drunk with preteen joy, but still, yes. Full knowledge: Did I fully comprehend the gravity of my decision to tear a living, breathing creature from its home and throw it in a red cooler? Did I know it was wrong and do it anyway, dissolve and erase the dappling on its flank? I am not sure. Fearful of just retribution, I never confessed my transgression. But to live in a state of mortal sin and continually return to the altar for communion—no fate is worse. I slept under the eye of judgment every night until I left for college, and every night I came back during breaks I slept uneasily under its gaze. I left home a few years ago, but I am back, and once again face the physical reminder of my fall. I know a good priest in Boston, a flyfisherman, who would surely absolve me of my sins and free me to return to the communion table clear of doubt and free of shame. Perhaps I will go see him. I will confess and contemplate how my actions prevented me from fully participating in the good I sought. And then, when I return to the river, maybe the past will not weigh so heavy. I will no longer see red speckles fade in my hand, gold turn to slate gray and pectorals turn brittle and break off. The visions will cease and I will hold the thing I have been allowed to catch suspended in the clear flow, remove my hook and let the fish slide away, back to its hold. As monks sleep under the crucified Christ, rather than an empty cross, to better remember the price paid, I will sleep under my 11-inch brown, a reminder of my weakness and a call to action.
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Mounted
https://digital.theflyfishjournal.com/articles/mounted