Each full moon, I write to honor the wild rhythms of nature and the raw truths I carry inside. These are moments to reflect, grow, and be brave enough to be seen.
This month is August’s Sturgeon Moon, named for the huge dinosaur fish gliding far below me, slow and certain. I can nearly feel them there, the suggestion of a shadow in the dark water, a quiet monarch of the depths. They’re not of my sunlit world, but people do hook and catch them.
I intend to be one of those people. I think I can land a big one.
Fishing for the Deep Catch
Every day, I fish from my deck for about an hour, sending my line west with the current, the lead weight thumping the riverbed. Sometimes it drifts and bumps along like a slow Morse code, the water answering back. I’ve pulled up wet green weeds, lost lures, and felt the sharp one-two taps of smallmouth bass darting in to steal my bait.
At sunset I blind myself as my line stretches into the glare. At dawn I shiver as mist drifts off the water, the sun peeking up and tempting the fish with golden glimmers on the surface. At midday, I let hooks drape under my deck, hoping for fish hiding from the heat.
There’s a lot of competition for the fish here. The salmon run in the spring brings huffing, feasting sea lions. Hook-necked cormorants dive and surface with wriggly pikeminnows flashing silver in their beaks. Ospreys plummet talons-first into the water, their wings slapping as they lift off with a dripping walleye.
We’re all competing, but the successful catches I see from my deck fill me with burgeoning hope. The fish are there. Hidden, but there.
I’m fishing for a lot lately: a rhythm to my new unemployed life, a clear direction to direct my efforts, a new job. I want to catch something rare: a job that pays well and also aligns with what matters to me, a true keeper. I want to come to terms with the slow cast-and-retrieve life I have now, to feel a loosening in my chest, a decompressing of my mind. And I want to spawn something new: my publishing company, Lingua Ink, growing into something big enough to sustain me. I have time before the savings run out. If catching what I need takes dedication, skill, and a little current in my favor, I’m equal to that.
Holding Steady in the Current
I’ve seen neighbors in my moorage hook a sturgeon. It starts as a faint tap or two, the fish testing the bait, then the rod bends hard toward the water. I imagine feeling it myself, leaning back with all my strength, arms burning, as the fish hunkers on the bottom, letting the river fight for it. That’s what this season feels like: a tug-of-war with something unseen but undeniably there.
There are smaller catches, a silvery steelhead or delicate shad I can land and make a meal of, and I appreciate them getting me through another month. But the big one is down there. My line is in the water. The sun glints off the ripples, the dock under me rocks with the current’s push, and I’m not done casting.
I can land the big one.
