The Old Man and the Bucket

What price happiness?

Every day that there was ice on the bay, he was there. He fished alone, sitting on an old pickle bucket. Non-descript. He was there before sunrise every day there was enough ice to support a hardy soul who prefers the cold north wind over a balmy southern beach. On days with a south wind, he would sit facing the sun with the breeze in his face. On days with a north wind, he would sit facing the wind, hunched over just a bit. On the coldest days, the ones where your nostril hairs rattle inside your nasal septum, he would turn his back to the frigid Arctic air and turn up the collar of his old woolen jacket. His attire was decidedly timeless. The thick woolen coat and pants were a pine green and black plaid, the kind that old deer hunters cherish from generation to generation. He sat on that bucket every day during the ice fishing season here in Vermont. His cap was a canvas Jones style with insulated ear flaps that on very windy days would flap in the wind like a dog’s ears sticking its head out the window of a car. It was comical but, out of respect for the old-timer, one might grin but never laugh. His ice rod of choice was an old hand-carved wooden handline with nylon braided twenty-pound line. At the four-foot mark a shiny flat rectangular “flasher” was attached with a barrel swivel on each end. From the bottom, a snap swivel hung where the four-pound monofilament line dangled down another two feet to a loop knot that attached to a 2/0 snell hook dangling off to one side. The remaining mono leader dangled down an additional twelve inches to which it attached another 2/0 snell hook that was hand tied to the shank. On those two hooks were small minnows that the locals called “pinheads” for their short length and winnowy girth. Their heads do indeed look too large for their entire body.

We would watch the old guy every day that we went out ourselves. On days that we didn’t venture out, we would still drive by the access out of curiosity to see if he was there. He was. Every day. For years. Always in the same spot. None of us could figure out how he always managed to find this exact location every day. When the snow blew drifts across the bay and covered everyone’s tracks, he would always be in the prescribed spot of his choice. Some days there would be close to one hundred people fishing in the bay and everyone would be using GPS programs on cell phones or one of the fancy nautical mapping systems available on the internet. We all knew he would never stoop so low as to bring technical wizardry to assist him. Hell, we joked, “if you asked him if he used the internet, he’d likely reply that “he didn’t need no damn internet. Just these hooks. The way it oughta’ be.”” We saw him from a distance, gently jigging his double hook line in almost imperceptible up-and-down movements. And every couple seconds he would slowly raise his hand line, so as not to attract any attention, then wrap the nylon line hand over hand to raise a handsome yellow perch above the icy open cylinder. His trusty hand auger sat on its side, always to the left of his bucket throne.

Other parties throughout the bay would drive around on four-wheelers with high-powered engines that sounded like a swarm of bees when they drove past him. They would have fish-finders, fancy propane or gas augers strapped to the decks with colorful bungee cords and two or three buckets plastered with fishing company decals covering the outsides so that everyone would know that they were “professional-grade” anglers. And always fancy shanties being towed behind the vehicles. Some people drove their big trucks out on the ice and would have a mountain of brand-new equipment stacked up in the bed. Most fisher-people brought a suitcase of high-tech ice rods with the newer drop-line reels and tips that could sense a fish’s breath on the lures, referred to as bibbits. They had fancy plastic see-through cases of all the “must have” spoons and jigs. They would bait their lines with artificial plastic thing-a-ma-jigs dipped in some scent conjured up by a major fishing retailer to attract their prey from miles down current. It was likely that the Old Man would have thought that each species had its own favorite fragrance dictated by a French designer who proclaimed that specific odor to be in vogue for that particular year. But all he needed was a fish-flavored minnow or a worm-flavored worm.

But I digress. The one constant each winter would be the Old Man on the bucket. In exactly the same place. Catching fish like no one’s business. People thought that he was just lucky. After all, his equipment was ancient and they had just spent a lot of money to buy the brand new “best thing” since the invention of the hook. No one ever bothered to introduce themselves to him. They just focused on the competition of catching more fish than the person next to them with last year’s rig.

The old man never looked up to see what anyone else was doing. Others just gave an occasional glance toward him and chuckled at his solitary pursuit. This went on for years. And every day when the sun rose over the mountains it cast a shadow of a man that had been there before dawn. And every evening as the sun set and people would begin their pilgrimage back to the access, he would still be there. Content. Alone. A few times during dramatically inclement weather we would drive back down to the access after dark and shine our headlights out over the frozen bay to make sure he made it back to shore all right. We never once saw him coming or leaving. He was always there from pre-dawn to after dusk.

Years passed and the number of ice fisher-people declined. The kids that had enjoyed skating and sliding on weekends while their parents fished were grown and were now involved in more exciting team sports. This new generation thrived on competition and the social spider web of building teams. Our crew started to “age out” and the entourage dwindled from a dozen regulars to just a few of us who still craved the cold north wind in our faces and the tug of a “hawg” yellowbelly.

One day, I was on the ice by myself and, having no success with my new ice rod with the ultra-sensitive tip and the newest iteration of a colorful bibbit. Frustrated, I mustered up the courage to wander over and asked if I might sit beside him. I thought my introduction might be met with disdain. Instead, he said “I was wondering when you’d come over here.” I was quietly shocked. I thought to myself “what do you mean...you wondered when? Had he been expecting me? For how long? Years? Decades, even?”

I introduced myself and he said “Ayuh. I know who you are. My name’s Everett. Everett Dubuque”