Fishing With Pappa Stokes

Emma's First Fishing Trip

I’ve got a good buddy who’s an avid fisherman and just recently became a grandpa. What I love about this guy, is he can be a little rough around the edges at times, but once you scratch the surface, you see he’s about one of the best dudes you’ll ever know. What’s really cool to see about him, is just how great he is around kids, they adore him because he’s one hundred percent authentic. To see him with his baby grand daughter is a joy to behold - he lights up brighter than the sun. I thought doing a story and envisioning him taking his grand daughter fishing (when she’s older) might make an interesting tale. What I try to do here is capture just how important these experiences kids have with their grandparent really are. Sometimes life’s greatest lessons are learned in the most basic, innocuous of moments and sometimes it takes a grandfather to show a child that the journey is just as important, if not more important than the destination. I hope I come close to conveying these ideas and feelings in this piece.

I’ve also included a music video of Otis Redding’s Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay which I use in the story. I hope you enjoy the story.

Fishing with Pappa Stokes

By: Larry B. Litton Jr.

The morning came soft and silver, draped in that sacred hush Galveston Bay wears before the sun climbs up over the eastern horizon. A thin veil of mist drifted across the glassy water, curling like smoke over the shallows. The only sounds were the tender lap of the tide kissing the barnacled pilings and the lonely cry of the gulls pacing the mudflats with hungry, yellow eyes.

Michael Stokes stood at the edge of the dock, one weathered boot resting on the gunwales of his old skiff, the DOCTOR DEBRA, named for his wife - the woman he loves more than life, who has been with him through nearly forty seasons of sun and storm. He had built the boat with his own hands in younger days, and he knew her the way a man knows the lines in his palms. He ran a calloused hand along the rail like a priest blessing an altar, his lips moving in a silent prayer. The hull was sun-bleached and scabbed with salt, worn soft by time, smelling of teak oil, fish blood, and the ghost of outboard grease. To Stokes, it was perfect - almost holy in its weathered imperfection.

Behind him, seven-year-old Emma stood stiff in her bright orange life vest, her fishing pole upright like a flag. She wore pink sneakers already damp from the dew on the grass and her hair – too clean for this place – shone like polished copper in the early morning light. She clutched a crinkled paper bag that held a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a little bag of Cheetos like it was treasure.

“You sure you wanna go?” Stokes asked, his voice was light and teasing.

“Of course I do Pappa Stokes,” she said.

He squinted out at the bay then turned to look back at her. Her smile broke something open in him – wide and deep. She looked like something heaven might have painted.

“We may not catch anything,” he said. “Some days the wind blows wrong, and the fish get lock-jaw.”

She shrugged. “Mama says you go anyway, and that you always catch fish.”

He grinned at that. “She ain’t wrong.”

With one practiced motion, he stepped into the skiff and reached for her hand. She took it, a little unsure at first, and he helped her down like he was lowering something precious into the boat. The boat rocked once, then settled with a sigh, like an old friend easing into a conversation. From a nearby shrimp boat, Otis Redding’s voice drifted over the water – Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay – notes floating through the mist like a morning prayer.

They shoved off slow, the motor sputtering for a quick moment before settling into a steady, rhythmic purr. They glided out into the little marina and towards the slack water channel that would lead them out into the bay. As the dock fell away behind them, they skimmed by a stand of cattails and a brittle bed of oyster shells and the sky before them opened up like a hymn, revealing a cerulean horizon just visible above the mist.

Stokes didn’t speak for a while. He listened to the motor’s hum and felt the light breeze sculpt its fingers around them. Emma sat cross-legged near the bow, peering into the water like it held secrets meant only for her. He smiled - her wonder was contagious.

Stokes breaks the silence.

“First fish I ever caught,” he said. “Was right over there.”

He pointed to a little pier that had long since lost its deck planking and was now nothing more than four rotten posts sticking up out of the water.

“I was twelve years old. We were camping close by, and I snuck out in the middle of the night with a flashlight, my fishing pole, and a bottle of my daddy’s beer. He caught me down here about an hour later.”

Emma turned to look at him.

“Was he mad at you?”

“Maybe a little at first,” Stokes says. “But he got over it when I showed him the big redfish I caught.”

She smiled at him and giggled.

“He showed me how to clean it, and we cooked it up that very night,” he said. “Best tasting fish I ever had.”

They slowly motored past a stretch of marsh grass where half a dozen herons stood sentinel, still as cut stone. Emma watched them as they passed by and the birds followed them with their eyes, studying them. A mullet jumped in front of the boat, splashing the surface in a silver arc startling her.

She turned to Stokes wide eyed.

“That’s the bay talking to ya,” he said.

“What’s it saying?”

He tapped the side of his head. “You gotta learn to listen.”

She nodded at him and smiled then turned back towards the water. She sat a little straighter now, more attentive, as if she understood that something more than fish lived out there – perhaps the bay held stories, maybe even secrets, and today it may be her turn to hear what it has to say.

The sun peaked up over the horizon sending rays of golden light shimmering across the surface of the water. The skiff kept moving, quieter than breath.

They entered the short channel slowly, the banks narrowing into a lazy throat of water lined with salt grass and rotting stumps mixed in with some ancient, jagged piers. The tide pulled gentle, like a mother’s hand, and when they emerged from the channel and out into the bay Stokes steered towards the eastern banks, way outside the buoys that marked the channel. He cut the motor so they could drift a bit, enjoying the silence.

Emma dipped her fingers in the water over the side, watching the little ripple spin out like glass rings.

“Don’t let the crabs nibble at ya,” he said.

She jerked her hand back and gave him a look.

“Just kiddin’,” he said.

She gave him an exaggerated frown and put her hands on her hips the same way her mother and her grandmother would do when they were irritated with him. He couldn’t help but chuckle and she smiled at him.

A brown pelican lumbered past, wings low and steady, its shadow gliding like a ghost over the water. Far off, a shrimper grumbled through the haze, gulls wheeling madly in its wake. But here, tucked against the shore, the world had gone still - as if the entire bay had taken a breath and was holding it.

Stokes leaned back on the bench seat; his eyes half lidded.

“Your momma used to come out here with me to fish you know,” he said.

Emma perked up. “Momma fished?’

“She sure did,” Stokes said. “She hooked a black drum that was as big as you when she was about your age. You should have seen her. She fought that fish for a good ten minutes – her rod was bent like it would snap in two and when she bent down as she got it close to the boat, she ripped the seat out of her pants.”

Emma giggled.

“I laughed so hard I nearly peed my own pants,” Stokes said. “Unfortunately, the fish broke away before I could net him. She was madder than hell about that.”

“She never told me that story,” Emma said.

“She probably don’t remember it as well as I do,” Stokes says. “But I remember it like it was yesterday.”

He shifted, and the boat rocked gently in the quiet tide.

“The thing is,” he said after a pause. “This bay remembers everything. That fish? He’s probably still out here. Maybe he’s old and slow now, or maybe he got caught by somebody else and ended up in the frying pan – and if he did, he left a part of him behind that still swims in these waters.”

Emma tilted her head. “He could be a ghost fish?”

“Could be,” Stokes said with a wry grin. “Nothing ever really dies – it just changes, turns into something else.”

Emma nodded, her eyes distant, as if she’s pondering such a weighty idea.

“You ready to catch some fish?” Stokes asked.

She nodded vigorously and broke out in a huge grin.

Stokes restarted the motor and revved it a couple of times and he turned the boat out towards the middle of the bay. The sun was higher in the east now and the water in front of them glittered like spilled coins. The haze was mostly gone now and the gulls wheeled and screamed along the shoreline behind them. For the next ten minutes they motored further out into the bay. A gentle breeze was coming in from the southeast and above them, a bald eagle glided effortlessly upon a thermal draft and seemed to float almost still in the air.

They headed toward an old, rotting wooden platform that was set not far from an oyster bed he had often fished since he was kid. As they glided near the little reef, Stokes dropped an anchor then backed the boat up gently to set it.

“Ready?”

Emma nodded her head excitedly.

Stokes grabbed her rod and reel and a live shrimp from the well, and showed her how to bait the hook. She watched him closely, studying his every move. He then walked her through how to cast the line, and how to let the line release freely.

“Keep your thumb on that line so it has a little tension when you cast it out there,” Stoke says. “Once the line hits the water, flip the bail over and it locks it so you can reel the fish in when you catch one.”

She took the reel and with a flick of her wrist she casts the line out there like she was a seasoned pro. The line and bait arced clean and hit the water with a sound like a breath being held.

“Perfect,” Stokes says. “That’s my girl.”

He then showed her how to pop the cork with a little flick of the wrist.

“That popping sound the cork makes attracts the fish,” Stoke said.

Stokes sat back and watched her. Every few seconds she’d pop the cork and looked like she’d been doing it for years.

“Where’s your pole?” she asks him.

“I’m just gonna sit back and watch you catch ‘em for a spell,” Stokes says.

They sit quietly as the morning sun rises higher in the sky. A few more boats have made it out into the bay and long line of sail boats can be seen coming out of the Clear Lake channel. Two of them have their spinnakers out, catching the light southeasterly breeze as they break out into the bay. Half an hour later, Emma is hungry. She’d gotten a couple small hits on her line, but they were mostly triggerfish who kept stealing her bait. Stokes offered to put a new shrimp on her hook each time, but she insisted on doing it herself and she did it perfectly each time. She put her rod in the holder and opened the little bag holding her sandwich and Cheetos. They sat together in the lull between tides, her line slack in the water. The mid-morning sun is higher now, soft gold giving way to the bright white light of late morning. A faint wind stirred the surface, wrinkling it like old skin.

Stokes is sipping on a beer, and he looks over to Emma. She’s leaning back against the side of the skiff, legs outstretched and eating her sandwich. She looks at him, as if she’s pondering something profound with a wry little smile on her face.

“What are you looking at goofy?” Stokes asks jokingly.

“Why do you like to fish so much Pappa Stokes?” she asks. She didn’t take her eyes off of him. He thought a moment, and he could tell by the look in her eyes this wasn’t just a ‘pass the time’ kind of question for her. No. This was Emma probing her grandfather, trying to look under the hood of Pappa Stokes mind and seeing what made him tick. He could give her a simple, direct response that would answer her question; but he sensed this was a big moment, a moment that could live in her memory forever.

“I like catching fish,” Stokes said. “But do you want me to let you in on a little secret?”

He leaned forward and his voice is barely above a whisper. Emma leans towards him, her eyes eager to hear more. He tilted his head towards the sky for a brief second, the way folks do when they’re trying to catch the right words that are drifting right above them but just out of reach.

“Fishing ain’t really about catching fish,” he said.

Emma’s eyes widen and she gets this puzzled look on her face.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Stokes smiles at her softly.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I love to catch fish. But I come out here to remember things, to listen. This bay - it whispers to ya and tells stories and reminds you of things long forgotten. I come to be with folks I love, to laugh, to just… be. That’s where the good stuff lives. In the ride. Not the finish. It’s the journey that leaves the lasting memories. Most times the destination is only a fleeting feeling that lasts for just a moment and then it’s gone. Understand?”

“I think so,” Emma said.

“People are always in such a rush these days to get where they’re going,” Stokes says. “They miss out on how great the ride can be.”

Emma smiles at him. A jelly smear brightened her cheek.

“I love you Pappa Stokes,” she said.

“I love you too sweetheart,” he said.

They sat together in the quiet water for the next ten minutes. The sun had leveled off behind a patch of cumulous clouds, softening the day into something still and silver once again. The wind barely moved now, and the skiff rocked gentle, like it was cradled in a dream.

It happened in the stillness, when even the gulls had gone quiet.

Emma’s rod sat untouched in its holder. The tide had turned, and the water was beginning to flow back into the bay, slow and steady. The bay was calm in that strange way it gets – like its waiting on something. Emma was taking a sip of a coke when her line twitched and the cork darted under.

It happened again. A small tug, like a nudge from something curious down below.

She sat up straight.

“Pappa Stokes –“

Stokes was already turning his head. “Watch it,” he said gently. “It’s about to take it.”

There was another tug, then a pull. The rod bent down like it was being bowed in prayer.

“Grab the fishing rod,” Stokes said calmly. “Grab it with two hands.”

The reel spun with a high-pitched whir as whatever had hit her line was running with the bait. Emma grabbed the fishing rod with both hands and her face went pale with surprise as the weight and strength of the fish pulled out the line.

“Good,” Stokes said, reaching over to adjust the drag on the reel, and the spinning stopped. “Keep the line tight and start reeling it in.”

Emma held on tight, and she started reeling, her arms trembling with the rod bent down heavy with something alive and unseen.

“Is it a redfish?” she asked.

“Might be.”

“A shark?”

“I doubt it.”

“Maybe a ghost fish?”

He smiled at her humor while she reeled in the fish.

“Possible,” he said.

Whatever was on the line surged again, pulling the rod tip down harder this time. Emma gasped but didn’t let go. She moved her hand further up the rod for leverage. Stokes crouched beside her, one hand on her shoulder, steady as the hull beneath them.

“Let it wear itself down,” he said. “You need me to help you?”

“No,” she said. “I got it.” Sweat broke out at her temple and streamed down the side of her face.

The fight went on. Five minutes. Then ten. The fish would try to run, and Emma would pull and reel and then the fish would stop for a second and the line would go slack for an instant. She instinctively kept the rod tip up and reeled to keep the slack out of the line as best she could. Stokes admired her grit. The fish made another dive, this time going under the boat, trying its best to keep its life.

Emma’s arms began to shake again.

“I’m not sure I can –“

“You almost got ‘em,” Stokes said, quiet but sure. “Just another minute.”

Stokes reached for his net so he could snag the fish when she got it up to the surface.

Her breath was fast and ragged now, her lips pressed tight in a thin little line. Then suddenly, the pull went slack, and the rod straightened.

“Did I lose him?” she asked?

“No,” Stokes said. “He’s just tired. Reel.”

She continued to reel slowly, fighting against the pull of the fish.

“There he is!” she shouted.

There in the water, about ten feet from the boat, a broad tail broke the surface then slapped the water. It was silver-red and dark around the edges. A redfish, Stokes thought. A big one at that. Maybe thirty inches long.

Emma gritted her teeth and leaned back, pulling the rod with trembling arms that were very nearly worn out and Stokes used his net to get it under the fish. It took him a couple of seconds but a moment later the fish was flopping angrily in the net. He pulled it out of the water and over the gunwales and got the fish into the boat.

Emma stands next to Stokes and they look down at the fish, the black dot on its tail flicking through the air like an all seeing eye.

“That’s a big fish,” Stokes says to her. “We’re allowed one fish per year over twenty-eight inches. This one’s about thirty. You want to keep it.”

She looked down at it – this old, heavy fish that had been swimming and living in this bay for God knows how many years. She looked back up to Stokes.

“I think I want to let him go,” she said. “I think the bay might miss him if he was gone.”

Stokes nodded, proud but quiet.

He took a moment to have her hold the fish long enough to snap a picture on his phone then he took some pliers, got the hook out of the fish’s mouth, and let him go. Stunned, the fish just floated for a moment, then bolted down under the boat and was gone.

Emma sat back, arms trembling from exhaustion, and she let out a long, deep breath. Stokes handed her a coke, and she drank from it, nearly finishing it in a single gulp.

“I did it,” she said, her voice tired.

“You sure did,” he said.

She looked at him , a satisfied, knowing little grin on her face but neither of them said a thing.

Just the water. Just the Bay breathing quietly beneath them.

With the fish gone now, they floated over their anchor for another minute. Emma sat still, her hands folded in her lap, her fishing rod back in the holder. Stokes didn’t speak right away. He leaned on one knee near her, watching her – and he realized she’s not the same little girl she was just a few minutes ago. The little girl sitting there now was different now, she’d grown up a tiny bit and transformed right before his eyes.

“You did good,” he said.

She nodded, and flashed him a smile that he could swear was different than the one he saw earlier, older. This smile was a bit stronger, a bit more confident.

He looked out over the bay – flat and gleaming, water reaching out before them in all directions. He took a long breath, like he was breathing it in for more than just air.

“You ready to head back?”

She shook her head.

“I want to stay out here a bit longer,” she said. “I like being out here with you, listening to the wind and the water.”

Stokes smiles and hugs her.

“You’re part of the story of the bay now,” he says to her. “And it’s a part of you. It’s like every time you come out here it gives something to you, and you give something in return. It’s telling us a story, one little piece at a time.”

Stokes sat down next to her, his hands on his knees, the afternoon sun now about halfway up in the western sky. Emma leaned her head on his shoulder, and he put his arm around her shoulder. There was nothing left to add to make the moment any more perfect.

Just the water.

Just the wind.

Just the story of the bay unfolding before them.

They sat there and lost all track of time. She told him about her teacher Miss Clancy at school and how Miss Clancy made these funny voices when she read Charlotte’s Web to the class out loud. She told him about her dance class, and how she didn’t really like it, preferring gymnastics instead. She told him about this cute boy named Cody who stuttered whenever he tried to talk to her. He soaked up every word like it was honey.

Some four hours later, the skiff moved slowly through the short, winding channel, its wake soft and shallow behind them. It is late afternoon, and the light now came in long and golden, casting the bay in hues of old brass and old memories.

Emma sat up at the bow again. Her hair is loose and flowing in the slight breeze. She looked out over the water like she could read something in it or maybe hear something the bay whispered to her.

Stokes kept one hand on the tiller, the other resting upon his knee. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

The salt grass whispered as they passed, full of wind and crickets and the rustle of things unseen. A shrimp boat stood far off on the horizon, leaning gently as it turned for the harbor, its nets dark and dripping.

As they reached the dock, the gulls have returned to feed on the carrion leftover by the fishermen who have come in for the day. Emma stood and reached for the piling. Stokes steadies the skiff with his foot and tosses the rope over the cleat in one practiced motion.

She climbed out of the boat, stronger and surer footed now and she steps onto the sun-warmed boards. Stokes followed her, a little slower, his knees stiff from the day.

The light caught her face in just the right way, and for a moment – just a flicker – he could see her mother and his wife in her, he saw a hundred mornings on the bay that had come before and a hundred more that would come after.

She turned to him.

“Can we come again?”

He smiled.

“Of course,” he said. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go fishing with.”

They walked the short path back to the truck, the gravel crunching underfoot, the bay stretching out wide and still behind them.

Stokes opened the door for her and paused a moment, one hand on the roof of the cab, squinting back toward the water. The wind carried that faint smell of salt and sea.

He breathed it in.

Then he climbed into the drivers seat, started the engine, and turned the truck towards home.

And behind them, the bay exhaled, smiled, and held its breath again. Another story had been added to its pages and a little girl has a fond memory with her grandfather that will last a lifetime.