Who among us wouldn?t envy the stamp of approval Vicki Horton?s personal essay ?Fishing with My Father? received from Writer?s Digest magazine in 2016?

In answer to some of my questions about this writing and her writing life, Vicki responded:

As you know writing is done mostly in isolation. I am my worst critic and have come to learn about myself that I need something that tells me I am growing in whatever I do. Ok, yes some critical (not the fluffy stuff) praise works wonders too. So I made it a goal to send in some writing, one piece each year, to a competition. It didn?t matter where. I have to admit it was very hard to do this at first.

I have done this for five years now and ?Fishing With My Father? is the only one so far that has won anything. Honorable mention didn?t come with a prize, just bragging rights.

This essay had been in the works for years now. Part of my inspiration to write this story was from a conversation I was part of at a Bed and Breakfast at an organization of writers here in the Northwest, Fisher Poets. I was telling my tablemates about the gigantic salmon my father and I had caught while commercial fishing and they suggested I write the story down. When I told them how huge the salmon were, we were all wondering if somehow they were throwbacks to an older genetic strain of fish. Later, I realized that through my writing I want to document what the fishing world was like 50 years ago. Much has changed. Though this piece started out as a stand-alone essay, it is now part of my memoir-in-progress.

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Fishing with My Father
by Vickie Horton

Dad was driving. I was scanning our neighborhood?s long shadowed streets through pitted truck window, lost in haphazard fishing thoughts: darkness, diesel fumes, cracking dogfish, oatmeal cookies, salmon, and a quarter moon. Dad stopped our battered green pickup truck in front of Howard?s Marine Supply and asked,

?You want to come in?? I shook my head.

?I?m outta gloves,? he said, and pulled up a flannel sleeve to show me angry red welts on the back of his hand and forearm that I knew were Jelly Fish toxin burns.

?I caught more damn jellyfish than salmon last night.?

?Aren?t you supposed to put salve on those? Or better yet,? I grinned ?you know Buddy, that skinny kid in my math class? His dad fishes the Ellen Marie. Buddy says his dad pees on the place where Jelly Fish have stung him. Does that really work??

My father?s caterpillar eyebrows danced as his laugh filled the truck cab.

?Can?t say I?ve tried it. In fact, peeing on my arm when I?m hauling in nets wouldn?t be smart, now would it? Gloves are the answer.? He closed the truck door and I could see even then the smile on his face.

When he returned, my father tossed a bundle of heavy yellow rubber gloves, buy one bundle get one free, into the truck bed.

?You ready to catch some fish tonight??

At the boat haven, my father led as we marched the narrow wobbling wooden docks, surrounded by stolid commercial fishing boats and imposing pristine sailboats. I walked behind him tippee-toe to peer over his shoulder. At our slip, my father stepped onto the short float that we shared with another boat. Our gillnet boat, the Vickilene rested gently tied to wooden cleats attached to the float. Green fishing net filled the giant spool at her center. Our dock neighbor Charlie, face streaked with grease, dirty as his unpainted fishing boat, was preparing to cast off.

?Hi ya, Phil, who?s your girlfriend?? The man asked this question in the same high-pitched voice each time he saw me. Father never seemed to hear. Instead, my father asked,

?Charlie, I hear there are Kings running out by Protection Island. You heard that??

Charlie shook his head.

?No, but then I don?t always pay any mind to what others say.? Charlie moved to release his bowline.

?Yah, I know what you mean,” my father said as he turned to board our boat with me close behind him.

?Wouldn?t tell me if you knew now, would you?? Father muttered the fisherman?s threadbare litany.

It was nearly dark when we left the harbor and we were surely the last boat to leave. I leaned against the net drum to look at the dusky sky over the flat roof of the cabin as I breathed the sweet smell of salt water. My father, now dressed in shiny all-weather gear, was steering from the stern of the boat. Behind where my father stood, I could see the maw of the boat haven and framing it all loomed the giant indigo silhouette–decorated with a few faint twinkling lights–of our town?s paper mill.

Father remained in the back of the boat watching, studying, and planning our night of fishing as I took the wheel in the cabin. Not long after I felt my father?s steps as he came forward. Dad stood in the open cabin doorway scanning full circle the twilighted waters. I then heard a click, click, click and as I turned from the wheel, I saw him disable the Vickilene?s lights: illumination, communication, information, festive red, white and green running lights, the glowing cabin light–now dark.

?I don?t want anyone to see us,? he said as he pushed the throttle forward. He gave the wheel a spin and the Vickilene responded leaving a pale phosphorescent tinged, lavender foamy trail against dark purple water, to carry us back the way we came.

We chugged around the outside of the boat haven toward the massive paper mill. My father dropped the net?s tail lantern light into the water next to the sleeping factory dock. He motioned me to the cabin to take the wheel as he fed the net from the drum onto the water.

We set our nets three times that night, drifting silently between net pickups, no running lights, no cabin lights, only the moon as witness. Each set, a floating string of pearls, started from the same corner of purple bivalve encrusted dock pilings.

When my father started the engine for the third net pickup, it was a familiar signal for me to climb out of my warm bunk and take the wheel in the cabin. I heard the engine?s familiar growl punctuated by the ping of taut net line wrapping onto the Vickilene?s powerful drum.

It was then that I heard my father scream. I ran to help, certain I would see his body wrapped in the drum like a fish we had caught. Instead, he was holding with yellow-gloved hands a salmon that was only slighter smaller than me.

?Look at the size of this monster!? he screeched as he shuffled his feet in a booted jig. He placed the fish on the deck of the boat next to his dancing feet and turned to guide more of the net onto the drum. And my father whooped again,

?Yahoo!!!? as another spectacular, giant plump king salmon wriggled its way over the stern of the boat. And once more my father laughed and danced as he stopped the drum to pick another beauty from the net. Dad would continue to engage the drum with his foot lever, reach to guide the net across the stern and onto the drum, stop to pick debris and fish from the webbing on this predawn morning all the while joyfully peppering the sky with whoops and yahoo?s. When the net was on the boat, we had a good catch that night, some weighing in over 90 pounds of valuable red meat.

We offloaded the next morning at the fish buyer?s dock back in the boat haven. With the sun just beginning to warm the wooden docks, father tucked his gloves into his pocket before he began the task of unloading. With one bare hand, he gripped the tail of each fish and with the other hand, threaded his fingers into the fish?s red-orange colored gill opening to move his catch from the Vickilene? s deck to the fish buyer?s box. As he did so, our dock neighbor Charlie sauntered over.

?Hi ya, Phil,? Charlie gestured toward the fish box.

?Catch these near Protection Island?? My father continued to insert his fingers into the rosy gill space of the last salmon to be moved. From his stooped position, my father looked up and caught my eye.

?Nope,? was all he said.