Angling is a special kind of hunt. It is, like most forms of fishing, a form of trapping. Angling is unique, though, for a couple of reasons. First, the trap is in contact with the angler’s body when it’s sprung; and second, the trap is sprung with little or no warning to the angler. I don’t suppose there is a feeling quite like that first tug on the line. It surprises the angler as though he were waiting in complete darkness at the end of a wire.
Thus described, angling runs contrary to the character of modern life, and it grows more and more averse to the modern every year.
The boys sat by their lines, silent most of the time. They’d cast in their hooks in the same patch of bubbling water, hoping that the bubbles were a sign of carp rooting around the bottom. They’d chummed the area a bit to hedge their bet.
They talked for awhile about catching fertilizer, but the conversation turned to koi before long. Peter asked Mehrzad if he could keep it secret. He didn’t want every kid at school coming over with rods and bb guns.
Mehrzad consented.
“What if you catch too much for your garden?,” Mehrzad inquired.
“I just leave them out for the cats and dogs. A book I read says they’ll breed with the koi and ruin their colors.”
“So you think there are more of those koi in there?”
“I hope so.”
The boys fished throughout much of that Spring and Summer. They never caught a koi. As the water levels in the ditch began to recede. Peter became doubtful and Mehrzad began to doubt Peter. They moved their operation upstream once their favorite spots dried up.
Occasionally, they would see a carp carcass rotting on the ditch bottom. Mehrzad stopped and looked down at the carcass. He turned to Peter: “what if we got a big net and dragged it up the canal?”
“Is that against the law?”
“Maybe. … Maybe we wouldn’t get caught.”
“We could carry the net in a backpack. You know, just in case someone sees us.”
So they did. They bought a used volleyball net from the Salvation Army store, and cut it in half. They stitched many of the square gaps in half with kite line. They grabbed a pair of posts, borrowed a small backpack and a Hefty bag, and headed up Peoples Ditch, in search of shallow stretches and a surefire fish farming scheme.