I’ll be having my first child in September – a girl we are told. You may think it a stretch, but we celebrated my first Father’s Day this year. On the subject of our growing family, we are a giddy pair, my wife and I, so in a fit of young-couple cuteness my wife treated me to one of my favorite things, and the most daddish thing I know… fishing. And not just fishing, but tank fishing on a private ranch far from the bobber-slinging, bait-fishing masses. It was just my wife and I… and Lillian… and ACe.

Nestled in lush sweeping hills and wrapped in stands of oak, the pond was glass, the water tea-colored and skirted with sheltering water-grasses. My mind racing in anticipation, I could already feel the certain thumps of country bass before we had even parked the truck. It was going to be a great day. The moment we were stopped, I lept from the truck. My wife forgave my excitement when I sheepishly leaned back in to the cab to say thanks before hurrying off again. I was absolutely beside myself.

As I took my first casts, I considered the possibility that I might just be a great husband, provider and father-to-be to be so generously rewarded on this Father’s Day. What a great day for me.

With water so still, I had to try a topwater Pop-R. There are few experiences in fishing more exciting and more rewarding than catching a bucket-mouth on a topwater. Casting to smooth, open pockets in the water-grass, I lightly jerked the lure intermittently as I retrieved it. This action produces a small splash and a light pop that mimics a vulnerable baitfish and can incite a lurking lunker to bite. And “bites” on a Pop-R are extraordinary; a whole opens up on the surface as water rushes to fill the void, sucking the lure with it into the gaping maw of lord-knows-what. Juxtaposed against the still of quiet water, the electric anticipation this experience engenders is nothing short of addictive. So addictive in fact that even a moment’s wait between casts can be unbearable.

And all too often with these lures, there is more than a moment’s wait between casts. With their bare treble hooks hanging from the front and back, they are apt to catch more weeds and sticks than fish. On this tank, with its shoreline water-grass, such snags were almost inevitable, and any time spent clearing these snags would be valuable time wasted. But there is a trick, one I had used a thousand times before on a thousand other fishing trips. At the very edge of the weeds before getting snagged, a sharp and firm whip of the rod will sling the lure out of the water, past the weeds and onto shore. With practice, one can learn to steer the lure safely off to one side or the other.

So I did as I had done so many times, and with my proud family looking on as their dad reveled in his reward, anxious to tap every last second of this experience so thoughtfully gifted, I sent another Pop-R shoreward. But before the lure left the water, its trailing treble-hook just caught the edge of the grass, redirecting the lure at this hapless caster. I tipped my head to the side, and once again it was the trailing treble-hook that caught, this time on the frame of my glasses. Sliding along the rail of my frames, the lure ran out of room over my ear.

With all the composure I could muster, I turned to my wife said “Honey, I caught something.” Puzzled, she came over to confirm what I feared, that I had buried the barb in my skull. As we walked to the truck, with my jewelry jangling in my ear with each footstep, I was kicking myself. Here I had gone and fudged-up an awesome Father’s Day gift. And then it started to dawn on me that this wouldn’t be cheap, either. In the past, emergency room costs, almost completely unmitigated by the insurance of the self-employed, have still always been well-worth their accompanying stories. But now this was different. I realized this wasn’t my money to spend anymore; this was food, medicine, clothes, even just fun-money for my family… and I buried it in my cranium. As I shook my head, the free hooks rang in my ears like ridiculous little bells tolling my shame.

My dad found himself in a similar situation when I was 13. He snagged a tree and in freeing his lure, snagged his arm. He calmly gathered his boys and took us home where he told mom “I’m going to the emergency room.” My brothers and I get great satisfaction in asking dad to regale us with his ignoble tale of grit. Through his accounts of this story, I learned two important things that would see me through on this day. First, I had a rough idea about my options in coming unhooked. Second, and most importantly, I learned how to effortlessly abandon pride and dignity for my family.

From my dad’s experience, I knew what my “correct” options were, and I knew that sitting in a pasture with a leatherman and fishing forceps, I was woefully lacking the necessary equipment to do this myself the “right way”. Resolved, I looked in my wife’s deeply-concerned eyes and said “You’re going to rip this [thing] out of my head.” We calmly, deliberately discussed basic hook-and-barb theory, coming up with strategies and maneuvers. I told my wife “This isn’t going to feel good. I am not going to be very happy. I will probably say a lot of things. Whatever I do, whatever I say, ignore me. I’ll be fine.” My wife’s gaze was strong, determined and as laser-sharp as the tackle in my scalp.

I knelt down next to the open door of the truck and put the seat belt in my mouth. As I clinched, my wife went to work. Over the next 15 minutes or so, she tugged, yanked, pushed, pulled, twisted, wrenched and jerked. But I was still hooked, and my wife’s eyes were floating in compassionate despair. Afraid this was now hurting her more than me, I resigned myself to the emergency room, and worse, an abbreviated fishing trip. And then my wife resolved herself. She had an idea. She called the land-owner and explained my problem with undeserved sensitivity. It would be 15 more minutes until he would be there, she said.

So I did what any fisherman worth his salt would do. I rigged up another rod and got back to work, my bedazzled nugget rattling with every cast. While I fished, to ease my mind over the impending emergency room fees, I called my favorite client to check up on invoices. When the landowner pulled up on his ATV, I was still on the phone, so he first consulted with my wife. Not seeing the lure behind my phone, he asked her which arm was hooked. His curiosity turned to bewilderment when she told him the lure was in my head… behind the phone shouldered on my left side… the phone being so uncomfortably positioned so as not to interfere with my right-handed casting.

I had met the farmer briefly weeks before at a graduation, but we reintroduced ourselves now on more personal terms. In an impressive display of genuine human interaction, he kept eye contact through our handshake and the how-do-you-dos, even as the shiny bauble chimed tantalizingly in his periphery. Returning to business, he looked bashfully at his cow-clippers and with a nervous laugh wondered aloud how much he would be able to help. But at my wife’s urging, he took his turn. With his clippers, he cut the bulk of the treble-hook free, leaving just the one offending prong behind. My wife offered encouragement as he pulled on the stump of hook that remained. But the pliers slipped and like an arrow off a bow, the clipped remnant shot deeper, completely burying itself. There was nothing left exposed for my new friend, or even a doctor to grab. Disappointed, our friend apologized.

But then there was a glimmer of hope, literally. In her unrelenting determination to see this through, my wife found the sliver-point of the hook poking ever-so-slightly out of a new, tiny hole. She pointed it out to our triage technician who could barely find it, even with her help. The two of them forced the hook-tip painfully further through my noggin until there was enough exposed for the pliers to get a hold of. Over the next six tugs, he gained a millimeter at a time as I lost small patches of hair. And then it was finished. In the nose of the pliers, there was the barbed sliver of hook.

After a few laughs and copious thanks, our friend headed back to work and I went back to fishing while my family spectated. But before I got to it, my wife apologized with deepest sympathy in her eyes saying, “I’m sorry your Father’s Day trip was ruined.” Aglow, in all sincerity, I saw it quite differently. This trip started as a day for a dad, and it was my good fortune this had become a trip to be a dad, the first trip of it’s kind. This was perhaps the best fishing trip I have ever had… and that’s saying a lot.