Home Sweet Home

By Dianne Collier

The Fish That Didn’t Get Away

Every once in a while a news story comes along that provides much laughter and cause for conversation. Such was the case in our home recently when news of a 230 kg (the size of a car) Greenland shark was caught in Quebec by someone ice fishing. I first saw the story on the 11pm news and sat there amazed and proud of what I was seeing. The reason for my reaction was the fact that a woman caught this very unusual fish

It was frustrating because there wasn’t a pen and paper handy to jot down the information being shared by the announcer. But immediately afterwards, I went to CTV’s web site trying to gather more information on this story. But alas – it wasn’t newsworthy enough to make the online news page.

However, since it was a late night news story I hoped there would be some mention of the story in the following morning’s newspaper – I wasn’t disappointed. Since HIM puts fishing extremely high on his priority list, I couldn’t wait for him to return from his usual coffee fix at Timmy’s to share this exciting story. It turns out the old boys network was busy discussing this amazing catch during their ‘coffee break’ as he already knew all about it.

His reaction was somewhat subdued though and I immediately chalked that up to the fact that a macho man who is attuned to the great outdoors couldn’t claim this as his prize catch. No, a mere woman probably out for an afternoon’s enjoyment supporting her partner’s passion for ice fishing, was the one who earned bragging rights.

What is so amazing about the story is that this giant shark was caught while ice fishing. I humorously recalled the many, many times I asked HIM and THEM what they would do if they caught a fish and it was too big to haul up through the hole in the ice – as if that would ever happen. Well, the woman that caught this beast had lots of help to enlarge the hole as it took 1.5 hours to haul the fish up to the hole. It was so heavy that they had to use a snowmobile to haul it out of the water.

What made the story so interesting and humorous to me was the fact that the fisherwoman didn’t hook the shark in the mouth, no; she hooked it by the tail. I couldn’t help but chuckle thinking of the hundreds of guys who consider fishing to be a guy’s sport and here, a mere woman not only caught a species of fish that has rarely been seen in that area over the last 30 years, but she caught it by the tail. Good for her!

I had an immediate vision of all the fishermen on the ice with her, doing a little dance on the spot, hardly believing their eyes. Why, this talented lady will have bragging rights in any circle for the rest of her life! Life doesn’t get any better than that.

Apparently the next morning, this catch of the century was again the topic of conversation at the local Timmy’s. I know that because HE came home with 101 reasons why the whole story had to be a hoax. All the excuses seemed to point to the fact that there is no way a woman could accomplish such a feat? Sour grapes? Most definitely.

Of course, being the kind, considerate person I am, I couldn’t help but add fuel to the fire at every opportunity. It was too good a feat not to get as much mileage out of it as I could. But, I’ve been told to write carefully as I might have to eat my words when it’s proven that this fish that didn’t get away, was not caught by a woman, was not caught by the tail. HE says the whole story is fishy. I say some day he’ll be a graceful looser.

But I shouldn’t point a finger directly at HIM for not being happy with this story as I suspect all his buddies came to the same conclusion – after all, they have reputations to maintain and having a woman create such a splash with this event dispels the myth that only men know how to fish.