This is a story about a fishing trip. Not really — it’s s story about a goose.
One fine late fall day many years ago, while drifting down the lower Sacramento, we ran into a goose.
We didn’t really run into it. It swam over to our drift boat as we drifted and did its best remora impression — actually, more like a pilot fish, for those of you who know fish behaviors.
For those of you who don’t, remoras are smaller fish that latch onto bigger fish; pilot fish are smaller fish that swim alongside bigger fish. This goose didn’t latch, he just swam alongside.
This goose proceeded to paddle down the river right next to the drift boat all day long. We’d pull over to the bank to fish, the goose would pull over to the bank to preen. We’d pull over to the bank to eat lunch, he’d (or she’d, I’m not really sure) pull over to the bank to eat bugs. We’d sit on the rocks to shoot the shit, he’d come over.
Later that afternoon, Sac (we called him “Sac,” not because he lived on the Sacramento River, but because he had a big one for being so casual around humans), seemed to be lagging a little. He was getting a little tired. So my buddy Jeff plucked him out from alongside the boat and plopped him onto the front-seat bench between Jeff and me. Sac thought that was great. He just kinda gave each of us the “Hey, how’s it going?” look, sat down, and hung out. My friend Aaron, who was on the oars and who has a cow ranch with a pond, said, “That’s one cool goose. If he hangs around ’til the end of the day, I’m taking him home and giving him to my girlfriend. He can live in my pond.”
Sure enough, that goose hung with us all day long. The last I saw of him, he was sitting between Aaron and Jeff on the front seat of Aaron’s pickup truck driving down I-5.
I found out the next day that Aaron gave Sac to his girlfriend when he got some — wait, I mean when he got home. She put Sac in the pond. Sac loved the pond, Aaron’s gal loved Sac. And the coyotes loved Sac sometime later that night. I don’t know why this story would come back to me after so many years. Jeff has been dead for over fifteen years now, not walking away from his third plane crash. Aaron moved to Texas years ago. I don’t even remember if the fishing was any good that day. It wasn’t the fishing that was memorable. Most fishing is like that.
