Kissing Bass

By Frank Sargeant
from The Fishing Wire

Let’s talk a little smack.

I’m not a prude, you understand. Nor lacking in the normal human need for affection. And I’m a broad-minded, inclusive kind of guy.

But what is this thing with fish-kissing?

It used to be just Jimmy Houston. I mean, I can see it, Jimmy is sort of a wacky guy, he’s a natural comedian as well as a heck of an angler, and if he wants to get a little weird and kiss fish and make that his trademark, that’s his business.

But now I can’t get in a boat without somebody planting a big wet one on a catch before sending it back over the side. Like campaigning politicians pursuing babies, they rush to kiss everything that comes aboard. A guy doesn’t want to see that stuff. Not even on Valentines Day.

I admit it, I might smooch a pooch now and then. A bird-dog likes a little extra reward at the end of a good day. But osculating an Oscar is not my idea of fun. Tangling tongues with a tarpon, not for me. Ditto for bussing a bluegill. Lip-locking a ladyfish, uh-uh. Sucking-face with a sucker, not. Smooching a smallmouth, I’ll pass. Snuggling up to a snook, negative. No spooning with a spoonbill or mergin’ with a sturgeon for me. Smackers don’t go to snappers. I’m not pecking a perch, either. And I will in no way exchange bodily fluids with a sailcat, AKA “snot on a knot” by some of the rather rough and ready fellows around Tampa Bay, I blush to report.

I mean, I can understand, it’s sort of a gesture. We love the fish, we wish them well, we want to see them again, we hate to let ’em go.

Or maybe it’s sort of like the mobster kiss de la morte, you know, ‘I see you again, Little Vinnie, I kill you.’

Or maybe the Middle Eastern approach, a fervent smacker, three times on each cheek, love you so much, and then a good riot, rock tossing, a little tire-burning, shooting guns in the air and a good time had by all. But whatever the logic, it escapes me.

Not to say I would never do it, of course. When it comes down to it, l can kiss bass with the best of them if I have to. In fact, bass kissing runs in my family, you could say. But we try to avoid it when we can.

Part of my thing about selective kissing probably came from my childhood. When I was in kindergarten I used to have an aunt who would come rushing towards me, lips like slabs of whale meat, dripping crimson lipstick and saliva, to plant a big wet one on my cheek every time she saw me, sometimes bashing my nose with her five pound ear-rings in the process. It gave me a lifetime bad attitude about kissing anybody whom I’m not taking out.

I have never been one for kissing cold-blooded creatures, anyway, except during a brief period in 1965 when I dated an Ohio University coed who called herself Zarga. She kept snakes. You get the picture.

Just because I love fish does not mean I love fish, you know what I’m saying? Some have accused me, in my divorced years, of dating female life forms that looked somewhat carpish. But they were all kissable rainbow trout to me, and kiss-catch-and-release was a wonderful thing.

For them, not for actual fish. To each his own, but for me, to tell the truth, the closest thing I want to get to fish lips is my needle-nose pliers.