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Malcolm MacLeod
Dorado "Another goddamn Palometo!" The fish was still chomping on the hook when I pulled it into the boat. Palometo are like Piranha, just a bit bigger. You've got to take extra care when taking out the hook. Put your hand too far up in those gills, you'll be driving back to the dock minus a few digits. We'd been catching the bastards all day, I'd lost a Dorado on my first cast. "When are we gonna get to have our first beer goddammit?" Mark and I were getting impatient. It was tradition to have a beer after the first fish of the day, but we weren't counting the Palometo. They're pests really, the guide throws them on land to die or cuts them up for bait. We were out for Dorado. That could mean a number of things depending on who you talk to. Turns out Dolphin Fish, Mahi Mahi, like you see in the Caribbean, can also be called Dorado. We weren't on the open seas though, no Mahi Mahi here. We're fishing the Paraná river in the province of Corrientes, Argentina. Our guide's name is Germán, but it's pronounced with an H sound. Anyway, he barely spoke a lick of English, and Mark took three years of Chinese in high school. So I had to do the communicating for all of us, with very limited Spanish keep in mind. I'm not the one who wants to live here though. Mark and I have been friends since high school. He wrestled, I played football, and we both loved fishing. There was this pond, down through the woods past the baseball field, that's where Mark and I first met. We used to sneak off after class to go throw out a line and pack a chaw, shoot the shit and all that. Things haven't changed. "Hey man, you want a dip?" I handed Mark the can. "You brought dip, ha of course you did. Ah man, it's been a little while. But yeah, I'll have one." He took out a fat pinch of the moist shreds of tobacco, flavored with mint. He looked like a chipmunk when he put it in his cheek. "Don't tell Magda though, about the dip I mean." He spat into the green water. Germán just lit another cigarette and smiled, his dead white eye staring blankly into the distance, must've been a fish hook caught him or something. I didn't care to ask. I cast out another line, reinvigorated by the nicotine. The lily pads stretched out for miles and the islands that dotted the landscape were thick with vegetation. This is the most remote place I think I've ever been. If anything happened to Germán, Mark and I would be toast. Magda had been Mark's girl when she was studying back in the States for an exchange program. He moved down here a few months ago on a whim, to be with her. He wants to marry her apparently. At least that's what he'd said after some drinks the night before. Magda is from here in Corrientes. She's beautiful, with dark brown eyes and hair black as crow's feathers. She definitely has some native in her. Makes sense he would fall in love with a girl from a fishing town. He fell in love too often. He's always
been that way, any girl that gave him any attention was "The ONE." He was always the one hurt in the end though. We always had our woes with the ladies, maybe that's another reason we were so close, we always had some chick to complain about. Suddenly I felt a tug on my line. "Hey, German! Aquí, aquí!" "Que paso?!" Germán said, he didn't talk much, but I could tell even he was excited at the prospect of catching a Dorado on a slow day like this. He grinned as he walked over, cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, his gold tooth catching the sunlight. Just then with a great splash, it breached water. The Dorado was known for its fighting spirit. They would try to shake the line early, as soon as they realized they weren't getting a free meal. The Dorado hit wasn't sharp like the Palometo's. They usually just bit the head off your bait fish and ran away. The Dorado strike was subtle, like a passing wake, or a small patch of seaweed catching your line. "Fuerte!" German screamed the word over and over, motioning for me to raise my rod higher as I reeled. After the first two or three times he broke water I was nervous, but I knew I had him hooked deep. Reel, reel, reel, pull. Continuing this pattern, he drew closer to the boat. I saw him in the water, huge mouth and bug eyes looking up at me. Germán grabbed the net from the other side of the boat, leaping over coolers and bait buckets. Mark and I took the net from Germán and pulled in the fish. We took some obligatory photos with our first catch. Grinning ear to ear. My first Dorado was Mark's first Dorado, even though he'd been fishing these waters for a while now. "Congratulations bud," Mark said slapping me on the back. We cracked open some beers, ice cold from the cooler. "Salud." I drank deep as I admired my work. 72 centimeters the fish was. Not huge by Dorado standards, but definitely a big fish. I'd say twenty pounds or so. Guess Mark would be measuring his fish in the metric system from now on. Well anyway, now we had lunch. We trolled over to another spot and threw our lines back in the water. A few minutes later, we were staring intently at the shimmering river and heard a "THWACK." We glanced over at Germán. He had just clubbed the fish over the head, hit it right above the eyes with a home made wooden club. Two feet long, thick and heavy enough to kill a fish. It was shocking how quickly the Dorado lost its color, a golden hue highlighted with splashes of green, blue and purple depending on the light. Its scales had shined so brightly just minutes ago. They were dull now, a grayish silver. I remembered looking at the fish just moments before, thrashing intermittently, its gills pulsating silently, confusedly searching for water. Its eyes were cloudy now. I'd put so many fish out of their misery. I'd been doing it since I was young. Why did this Dorado make me so sad? "All right, time to get another one!" Mark's voice brought me out of my introspective state, and I recast my line. After another couple hours on the water, we docked on an island for lunch. I helped Germán prepare the fire. Mark was never very good at taking a hint. Even when
I brought him camping back home, he'd stand by idly, spewing philosophical nothings while the rest of us collected wood and set up camp. This time he spoke about his love for Magda, and Argentina. "We're gonna start a fishing lodge. You know, like the ones we saw on the drive down to the dock. They do good business, we could pull in probably five, sixhundred pesos a month. I just gotta save up enough for a boat and some building supplies and we'll be ready to go. We'll have everything we could ever need man" Bent over with a bundle of wood in my hands, it was all I could do to nod my head and chime in with the occasional "Mhm" or "That's great man." I wondered if Mark realized that fivehundred pesos came out to about fifty bucks U.S. A mosquito landed on my neck. Slapping at it, I dropped all the wood I'd collected. He should have stayed at Franklin and Marshall. Don't get me wrong, Lancaster Pennsylvania is hardly the place to be. It's a dreary, lifeless place from what I've heard, but college is college right? It couldn't have been that bad. I guess that's what brought him down here. Magda is what made that place bearable for him when he was about ready to snap. I've been trying not to think about all the work I've got waiting for me when I get back to school. I understand he wants to get away from all that, but it's a long term investment. I don't think he gets it. Germán was lighting the fire now. The Dorado was cleaned and filleted, hanging from a broken branch in a nearby tree. The shade it provided was a welcome respite from the sun we'd been baking in all day. I stripped off my sweat soaked shirt and removed the cap that had been protecting me from the sun all day. Mark didn't worry much about the sun. His olive skin had gone three shades darker since I last saw him. The fish was now frying over the crackling fire, fueled by moist wood. Germán had constructed a rudimentary spit from which he hung a small black cauldron, coated in grease from I can't imagine how many cooks. Stabbing the hunks of fish with the biggest knife I've ever seen, he dipped them into the bubbling oil. "Some authentic Corrientes cuisine for ya bud," Mark said. We stared into the oil, watching the lifeless meat regain its color. The gray meat turned white and the lifeless scales were coated in a golden layer of crispy oil. When the picnic was finally set, the three of us attacked the fish like animals, tearing apart flesh and bone with our bare hands. Lightly salted, the golden brown meat of the Dorado restored our drive. We still had another four hours or so on the water. Oil dripping from our lips, our bellies full of foamy beer, we started breaking down our cook site. "Looks like rain, those clouds are coming in quick." Mark was right. We were so sheltered in the shade of the canopy, that we hadn't noticed the sudden chill and rising wind. The sky grew ominously dark, and just like that, a low crescendo of thunder rolled through the still river basin. Thick rain drops pattered down through the trees, splashing upon our faces. We chased down some napkins and rescued the picnic blanket from the wind,
but all said and done, the storm was pretty calm. Through the storm, Germán slowly restored his boat to working order, chain smoking cigarettes as he worked silently. The sun peaked through the clouds once more, but a light rain continued to fall. "Should cool off the afternoon real nice," I said to Mark, "think it'll bring out some big ones?" "Well, I'm sure we'll find out won't we," Mark said looking up at me with a smirk, a dip bulging out of his lower lip. Germán motioned for me and Mark to get back in the boat. I opened up the cooler and tossed each of them a beer. "Drink up fellas, we've still got fishin' to do. You know what Mark, I could get used to this."