Fishing: The Final Frontier (Part Three; Final)

*** continued from previous post - part 2 ***

So, like, getting into a boat and trying to get yourself at least twenty feet away from the shoreline is a lot more difficult than you would think. Well, at least if you're with Taha and Ahmed. I thought they would be pros at steering a boat being as they are from STL where the only fun thing they have is going up and down some stupid arch. In fact, I figured that fishing while growing up in Missouri was like the equivalent of going to Great America. I was wrong...

The ever macho Taha thought he could easily paddle us out of the shoreline area. After making us go sideways at one point, backwards another, and then nowhere fast on another occassion, I finally showed him how to maneuvre with the oars. I totally made it seem like I was the resident Boating 101 teacher, even though I had no clue what I was doing myself. But my method worked and of course Taha quickly grabbed the oars back so that credit for getting us out there could go to him. Kudos, Taha.

While I was battling with Taha on that front, Hassan faced his own battles with jump starting the motor. Not having a suture, stethascope, or bottle of Tylenol posed as a daring new challenge for the young doctor. To his credit, the three of us combined couldn't figure it out. Some young white teenager by the shoreline saw us having difficulty with it (or perhaps heard us yelling at one another on how to get the motor started) and so he told us the secret: Put the motor into the water and turn the handle up or down. Or something like that anyway. The point here is that thanks to Hassan NOT being able to figure it out, we looked like desi uncles lost without their wives' cooking. And so finally we cruised at a rip roaring 5, maybe 10, miles per hour (it was a small motor) into our fishing spot.

Okay, so you should know that when I say fishing "spot," I really mean the entire lake. We would stay in one area for a maximum of 15 minutes. We'd get impatient and cruise again. Often times, our cruising would come to a halting stop as we immersed ourselves into a coral reef (i.e. really thick seaweed). Our next struggle came with hooking our juicy nightcrawlers onto the fishing hooks. Hassan and I were able to master this fairly quickly. The ever so macho Taha, on the other hand, was entirely clueless. Where Hassan and I would talk and relax for hours and hours with our fishing hook and bait in the water, drinking a nice cold beer...oh wait, this isn't a Budweiser commercial...you could find Taha wrestling with the worms. In the end, he'd just ask me to hook the worm on. I think that day, at least 15 worms died in vain at the finger tips of Taha Ghani...

After patting ourselves on the shoulders for learning how to control a boat and hook fish, the next task was learning how to cast a line. Hey, don't laugh! It's not as simple as the guys on ESPN's bass pro fishing make it seem out to be! Well, I'm happy to say that making up for his lack of engineering knowledge, AH came through like a champ when it came to hooking a line. He was the first one to cast the line more than a foot away from the boat and his last cast went out for something ridiculous like 500 feet or so. Me and Taha did fairly well ourselves; though Ahmed would never admit to it. In fact, anytime Taha or I would stand up to cast the line, Hassan would duck underneath the seats in the boat in fear of getting his eyeball hooked. Eventually, he soon began to trust our abilities. Except, perhaps, for when Taha would consistently get his fish line stuck in ours. Like every other casting attempt.

I was beginning to think that Taha truly fit the saying, "Fish out of water."

But I am getting ahead of myself. This time to Taha's credit, he did land the first bite of the day. We were goofing off as usual and Taha suddenly realized that his fish line had some tension to it and the little ball thingy (oh yeah, I'm a real professional fisherman) that keeps the worm floating went underneath the water. "I caught something!" he reacted.

"What?! Hell no!" came AH's and mine reaction at the same time. "Reel it in, dude!"

And for a good 30 seconds Taha fought an intense war against, presumably, a catfish. Unfortunately, however, when the hero brought the line in, he brought in an empty hook. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the fish beat Taha in a tug-of-war match. It had succeeded in ripping the worm right off the hook and had somehow managed avoiding getting a hook pierced through its mouth. Our bubble of hope and joy was popped. But only for a moment...

"If Taha got something, there's gotta be more fish out here hungry & waiting!" I declared. Immediately the three of us hooked some more nightcrawlers and casted our lines again in eager anticipation. We waited. And waited. And waited. 10 minutes later Hassan spoke up, "Cap'n. Take us to the fricken fishies."

You're right in thinking that the "Cap'n" was, still is, and will always be none other than yours truly. We eventually incorporated a Star Trek-like image of ourselves. I was Captain Picard. Hassan was LaForge in Engineering. And Taha was Number One/Lt Worf. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you may as well do something more productive like reading this.

Okay, now that you're back (long live Knight Rider!)...

So hearing, "Cap'n. Take us to the fricken fishies" became a redundant phrase throughout the rest of the voyage. We were not catching anything at all. What was worse was that we noticed some girl caught a huge fish not but a 100 feet away from us. And she was standing on the shore, too. So being typical desis at that moment, we were inspired to 'accidentally' let our boat float in that direction where the girl caught the fish. Sure, the look we got from her and her family was embarassing, but at that point, we were getting desperate. I mean, we did pretty much everything you could do on a boat:

Bonding. Taha and AH were able to psychoanalyze one another by delving into such topics as, "Who's shadier? Taha or Ahmed?" and "In relation to the two going out the previous night and not hanging out was Ahmed a) really, really mad at Taha? b) mad at Taha? c) somewhat mad at Taha? d) unsure of what he felt towards Taha? or e) okay with Taha?" I think they both used me that day to purposely get the other person out in the middle of a lake to address these issues while I played the role of Dr. Phil.

Hunting. Oh, yes, we were hunters that day, too, folks. When things weren't going our way, we looked for geese or ducks that were hanging out and minding their own business in the water. Without hesitation, I'd give Ahmed the order, "Engage!" and the next second we were in full pursuit of trying to catch up to a duck or goose. Much to our surprise, we'd come fairly close to the bird before it would finally fly away (most likely to Florida as I'm sure we permanentely scarred many a bird that day). ;)

Fishing. Yes, we did fish on that day and we did catch something. Check out this beauty Taha caught:

That's right, baby! Seaweed guck!

That pretty much ended our trip. We got back home for maghrib, prayed, and then ate a nice home cooked meal. Taha, Ahmed, and my brothers continuously made fun of me in front of my mom and I'd have my fair share of getting back at them, too. We were going to watch Mission Impossible III but both STL guys were tired and headed back. So I thought...

15 minutes after leaving, Ahmed calls me and tells me that he's headed back because he refuses to leave Pleasantville/Plainville (they never quite get my hometown name right) unless we go watch MI:3. I was totally like, "Done and Done." So they came back and Ahmed runs up to my bedroom without warning. I thought to use my bathroom, but after a few minutes for waiting on him, Taha and I go upstairs to check to see if he was still alive. Lo and behold! There was Ahmed in my bed resting. Soon enough, after we wrestled him out of there, we concluded the evening by watching MI:3. It was a great day that these words do no justice of!

I'll let some more pics do the talking below. And most definitely go to http://video.google.com and in the search field type in the following: imran shakur fishing. You will not be disappointed folks!

Peace out, A-Town.