Catfishing

I dreamed I was walking in a mountain valley, and I came across a little creek unostentatiously winding its way though the grassy meadow. People had spoken of this creek as having some of the best fishing spots in the area, although you would never know to look at it. Just a humble little gurgling stream with a couple of large rocks on the banks from which an angler could stealthily cast a line. 

It was narrow enough to hop over, so I leapt from one side to the other and climbed on top of one of the big rocks to observe the fish as they made their way upstream. There were sockeye salmon and steelhead visible in the clear shallow water. I grabbed a fishing pole that someone had left on the rock, already rigged with a fly, and cast it into the stream. 

I could see the fish reacting to the lure as I jerked and reeled the line through the water. I got a couple of tentative bites, and then I pulled up hard and hooked one.

"Yeah, baby! Whoo!" I whooped, reeling in the weighty creature as it bent the pole in half.

When I got it out of the water, however, it turned out not to be one of the salmon or steelhead but my next door neighbor's cat Olaf, who used to come over to play in my backyard a couple of years ago. He'd been missing for a while and was presumed dead, since we have a lot of foxes, hawks and coyotes prowling around.

I quickly pulled the hook out of his mouth and cuddled him to comfort him from the trauma. He seemed to remember me, and we played around a bit before he wandered off, presumably to jump back into the stream and resume his new life with the fishes.

That's all. Just a simple dream about catfishing.

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To  continue with this theme, I had a similar dream on another night, but since I didn't write it down immediately, I will retroactively place the little that I remember here. It went like this:

I was fishing at the end of the Santa Monica pier, casting my line into the monofilament jungle, where too many anglers were angling for the best spot. It reminded me of an eleven year old version of myself doing exactly the same thing and pissing off the weathered old fishermen as my line came dangerously close to crossing theirs. I could hear the admonitions of my dad, warning me that if someone else caught something, etiquette would demand that I cut my line. 

"I'll be real careful," I said. "Plus, what if I catch something?

"Not likely," said my dad. "But try if you want to."

I made the perfect cast, sailing my little sinker and baited hook well past the others. I didn't have to wait long before I was getting bites. I felt my pole jerk downward, and instantly I was engaged in the familiar battle, reeling and tugging against an unknown foe.

"Reel in, guys. He's got something!" an old fisherman shouted, and the rest of them grudgingly complied.

"This had better be good," said a particularly salty crustacean, wearing grey rubber boots and a red and black flannel overcoat. "I just baited up."

Similar complaints were muttered by others, and I reeled as fast as I could to try to get my catch landed. But when it broke water right in front of the pier, I caught a glimpse of my prey, and it sickened me. Not a mackerel or bonita, perch, cod or barracuda, not a stingray or a shark, not even a sea bass or a crab--it was my cat Eddie. 

"Damn it, Eddie!" I cried. "What have you done?" 

I managed to land the soaking wet sulky feline amidst titters and tsks from the crowd, who by now were back to baiting and casting. I pulled the hook out of my cat's mouth, alternately making apologies and issuing stern warnings that I might just as well have left her on the line as shark bait for pulling such a stunt.

I woke up feeling sick to my stomach, but that was likely the effects of some antibiotic ointment which has been wreaking havoc on my GI tract for the last few days. It was so bad that I wound up going to the clinic to get tested for CDiff. The test results should be in soon, so I'll be back to report should there be anything interesting.