I paddle my kayak up to a mangrove island and park in the shade, casting out.
Heaven.
I’ve come with others to kayak and fish, and I’m super excited. My hope is to catch redfish and snapper for us to enjoy for dinner. I’ll be a hero!
I am using shrimp and darn if I don’t catch a big catfish right off the bat. The ecstasy of reeling against a strong pull is instantly changed to heartbreak.
I look around for my husband, my son-in-law—anyone!
But I don’t see anyone who I can get to help me, because, unlike any other fish, I can’t take a hook out of a catfish’s mouth. I don’t mean “I can’t” because I’ve tried before and failed…I mean I’m not allowed to.
With the hooked fish dangling in the water, I paddle to the end of the mangroves to see around them. No kayaks in sight. Panic. Who is going to take the blasted catfish off my line?!
The rule goes back to when I was a child growing up in rural Florida. I was one of the last free-range children. While my dad was at work and my mom was inside, out of the Florida heat, I’d roam. I’d roam the woods and especially the back forty acres, where there was a lake. I had a bamboo fishing pole, and I learned to kick-splash minnows up to the shore and grab one to bait my hook.
I spent countless hours down there by myself, fishing and catching enough brim to keep it interesting. But all the fun would come to a screeching halt if I happened to catch a catfish. I was not allowed to unhook a catfish, throw it back, and keep on fishing. The whiskers on a catfish –they are actually not a problem. It’s their three sharp spines on the top and side fins. When you hold a catfish and use your other hand to remove the hook, it’s easy to get spiked by a spine, and that hurts. So my daddy was being protective when he told me not to even try, but to wait until he got home from work and he’d do it for me. Well, if I caught a catfish at 3 o’clock, I’d have to sit with it dangling in the water until 6! Then I’d run up to the house and fetch my dad. So I did not like it when a catfish snagged my minnow, no sir.
The funny thing is, I only realized the other day the absurdity.
My dad’s rule was for my protection? What about the fact I was allowed to roam around by myself for hours without my mother being able to see where I was? I mean…what could be dangerous about that? The woods in Florida only have harmless black snakes, mostly…only a few times did I come across a coral snake or a rattlesnake.
And down by the lake? Why, I never actually saw an alligator, except that one time and it was real little. And I’d been taught that water moccasins have cotton mouths, so when I saw one of those, I knew it was not just a friendly black snake.
So here I am, a twig-like little barefoot girl, jumping over snakes and climbing 50-foot-high Australian pine trees, growing my creative neuro-synapses like crazy from being fed so much free time…
But the law is the law: Do not touch a catfish.
So I’m in my kayak, held captive by a catfish. I’m looking behind mangrove islands, trying to find my dad—I mean my husband—to unhook the damn catfish so I can keep fishing. I’d planned to be out here all morning! That was the whole point of this trip! And my fun was ruined in five minutes!
And then a flashback happens. Literally. In a flash, I’m back in time as little Bobbi watching my dad with his pliers, releasing a catfish.
I turn around in my kayak seat to reach into my tackle box. I grab some needle-nose pliers. I lean over the side and with my left hand, I grab the line down about a foot above the fish’s mouth and lift him out of the water. With my right hand, I grab his lip with the pliers to pull him close, then slip the pliers around the hook. With a twist and shake, he’s free and falls backward into the water and heads for the mangrove.
I put away my pliers—and my obsolete limiting belief—and keep on fishing.
A limiting belief is simply a lie you are telling yourself. You’ve heard it told as fact so many times, it feels real and true. Cross-examine those beliefs! You will find the gaps, the fiction, and expose hidden motives.
Your view shifts. What you called a wall turns out to be wide-open windows. You’ll discover that something that served you at one time, could be working against you now. So catch it. Release it.
Catch and release.
By the way, I bet you’ve heard someone (or yourself) tell you, “You should write a book!”
What would that take? Who would want to read it? What’s the first step?
Contact Barbara Dee to answer ALL your questions.
Want to learn how to start your own book? Let Barbara Dee help!
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