The Fish That Came Up Through the Plumbing

The engineers who drilled the STEP test well were studying groundwater movement. I was studying whether anything in Vermont would bite a live minnow in January.

Around Jericho, there’s a story told now and then about the winter a fish came up out of the plumbing, and I can tell it proper because I was holding the line. - Bernie

 Jericho Community Wastewater Test Wells were drilled in an effort to determine the feasibility of a 'STEP system'– Septic Tanks with Effluent Pumping.  Waste would first be collected by septic tanks on most properties. Then, pumps would pump waste to the effluent force mains, which would carry the wastewater from individual properties to a shared underground leach field. The remaining wastewater would be pumped from individual properties to a shared underground leach field.

One of the drilled holes was inadvertently left uncapped. The drilled hole had pierced an underground spring, a subterranean spring, which is a concentration of groundwater that flows into a natural cavity. The water level rose quickly, nearing the ground surface.

There are two kinds of fishing holes in this world: the ones you drill on purpose, and the ones the town drills for you.

The fishing at nearby Browns River had not produced any bites. As I headed home, taking a shortcut through school property, I spotted the overflowing aquifer. Having a bit of bait left, figuring no use in just throwing away perfectly fine live minnows, I decided to hook one and drop it into the water. It was sort of like ice fishing, given it was about 5 degrees, only I did not have to walk on singing ice: booms, thunder, cracking, popping, groaning, or high-pitched, laser-gun-like chirps spooking me, like happens when I ice fish on Lake Champlain. Why, one time it spooked me so bad, I dropped my hand line right down the hole. 

Most people see a municipal test well and think “infrastructure.” I saw a perfectly good fishing hole

Here I could chill out in the quiet, and there was no ice to scoop out of the hole. Now I knew there was no chance I was going to catch a fish, but sometimes fishing is about being outside, by yourself, with the look of doing something productive, when in fact all you really want is to drift away into a dream land of catching that monster fish that is so big it won’t come up through the hole in the ice, and just stares at you with those ghoulish fish eyes as if to say, if you want me you are going to have to jump in. 

While my minnow did its thing, wiggling about trying to get off the hook, I started dreaming up the idea of getting a few buddies to join me. Beats driving all the way to Lake Champlain, what with all that city traffic, and the aforementioned noisy ice, this seemed like a great alternative. 

I never intended to go aquifer fishing that day, but when you find a perfectly good hole in the ground full of water, it feels almost impolite not to drop in a line.

For sure, my buddies would all get a good laugh out of that! If I persisted, they would all think I froze one too many brain cells. No, what I needed was something to put a hook into the idea. I needed some bait to get them over to my way of thinking. I needed not just a story about the one that got away, I needed a fish from this here aquifer. 

I looked down into the deep, dark abyss, thinking how sweet it would be to see a mermaid, a local one at that, pop up her head, set her elbows on the edge of the drilled hole, and smile up at me. But heck, if that happened, I sure as heck was not going to invite my buddies over. No, what I needed was a fish. No need for it to be a five-pound bass, nor a forty-eight-inch pike. Nah, just an ordinary young fella big enough to be legal and in season. 

I looked down into the deep, dark abyss again. No sign of a mermaid. The water was undisturbed. Then my fishing line moved a tiny bit. Then it slid a few inches deeper into the water. My homemade hand-jig on a reel began turning ever so slowly. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said, "That little minnow has more gumption than I gave it credit for". I was beginning to cheer for it and imagined it getting off the hook and waving goodbye. 

It began, like many questionable adventures do, with a drilled hole, a bucket of minnows, and more curiosity than good judgment.

I picked up the reel to give it some slack, when the line started buzzing off faster and faster. Well, either that minnow found itself a can of Popeye spinach or something down there had my minnow for lunch and was swimming away with a forked hook in its mouth. 

For a minute, I forgot that I was not on the two-foot-thick ice of Lake Champlain over fifty feet of water. For a minute, I forgot about the fish not biting at Browns River. For a minute, I forgot about my buddies’ likely response to me telling them what was happening and, most importantly, where it was happening. 

It almost always happens that way. Ask any fisherman worth his oats what he was doing when he landed the most extravagant fish of his life, and sure as heck that fisherman will tell you they were not paying the least attention to their line, the water, or even thinking about fishing. More likely, they were sipping on a beer or telling far-fetched fishing stories. 

Looking at my now nearly empty spool of line snapped me out of it. Ok, fish, you have my attention. Don’t know how in blazes you made it from the river to this here drilled aquifer, but I aim to make sure you don’t go back. Boy, won’t the boys be surprised when I show them what I caught in this ice hole ON JERICHO SCHOOL GROUNDS? Why, I bet every kid in the school will be out here at recess dropping a line down to try their luck. 

I started pulling in some line, easy at first, then a bit heavy pulling. I wasn’t sure I hadn’t just hooked an old tire at first. But then the fish started to fight. Fight like a dog that, after tasting a fresh bone, does not want to give it up. My fingers began to freeze up, while at the same time, the line running through them burned my palms. Meanwhile, the janitor and what I assumed were some school kids and their teacher had their faces pressed to the window of the school room, all eyes on me. 

Some men go looking for fish in open waters. I happened to find one at the bottom of a municipal infrastructure project.

Lord, all I needed were a bunch of kids knocking over my bait bucket, waving and swashing my catch net about like it was a butterfly net, and throwing chunks of snow and ice into MY fishing hole. Now had not drilled the hole, I could not claim the right to use it. Except that the second rule of understanding in ice fishing is that if a hole is abandoned (no gear nearby and the person has moved on), it is generally considered fair game for someone else to use. And a hole is considered "claimed" if a fishing line (tip-up or rod) is in it. My line in the water was as much an ‘occupied’ sign as was needed. 

A few feet at a time, I began to make headway, pulling up line, loosening a bit back, pulling up some more. This fella sure felt like a big one, but for sure, I was bigger and stronger. It was just a matter of time. Meanwhile, the faces were no longer pressed to the windows; only smudges and foggy outlines of faces remained. Soon there were dozens, must have been twenty-five or more young kids and a couple of adults standing about twenty feet away behind the rope and the sign that stated DANGER – STEP TEST DRILLED HOLE. Somehow, I had missed the rope and sign surrounding the ice hole. 

Nobody said a word. Didn’t matter either way; I would not have heard them anyway. My whole Attention Deficit Disorder brain was one thousand percent focused on pulling up this fish. I glanced to my left to be sure my catch net was within reach. It wasn’t so that was going to be a problem. Besides, if I took one hand off the line, the way this fish was still fighting, unless it suddenly gave up the ghost, I would lose it and all the line by reaching for the net. For sure, this ‘lunker’ and I were going home, my home together one way or another. 

Most folks think municipal wastewater projects are dull affairs of pipes and paperwork, but one winter in Jericho proved that even civil engineering can hook something unexpected.

The headlines flashed before me, “Man Catches Humongous Freshwater Fish out of a STEP System Hole on Jericho School Grounds”. My buddies won’t ever again laugh at my pink fishing rod. No matter how big their “one that got away” story is, it will not beat this story unfolding in front of me. As if it put all of its last big bit of energy into one surging deep dive, my fish nearly pulled me into the icy cold abyss. The crowd all gasped as I fell to my knees, and I went down face-first just shy of the black splashing water. 

Don’t you worry, none folks, soon enough this fish will be on a platter. And don’t you worry, none,  fish. Your efforts will not be forgotten. Before I skin and fry and eat you, I will trace your body on a pine board and cut it out to remember you by. And with that, the line went limp. The game was up, and so I began retrieving forty feet of line with barely a tug below.  Judging by the heft, I figured I had me a good four-pound fish - not bad for an inland ice hole. By now, the outliers were all around me, cheering as I pulled my fish out for all to see. Took three of them to hold the net while I maneuvered the fish safely inside. 

I took another look at the sign, just to make sure it did not read “NO FISHING on School Grounds”. Nope, just the warning about STEP and the drilled hole.  

Well, I know this here story is hard to believe. Likely, most of the parents of those kids will only laugh when their kids recall what they saw with their own eyes. The teachers, well, the teachers won’t be passing on anything for fear of getting in trouble for going past (with the students) the rope and the ‘Danger - STEP Drilled Hole’ sign. And nobody will take the janitor seriously after all the long tales he has spun in the past.

My buddies, on the other hand, will want to see my framed fish, then they will want to hear the story again and again (after a few beers). Course by now, the drilled hole will only lead to a septic tank, which carries wastewater from individual properties to a shared underground leach field. Folks wonder why that leach field often smells like rotting fish. 

Pressed on the point, I get out my wood carving fish remnant, and an old rusty STEP Drilled Hole sign, and commence to tell them about ice fishing in Jericho, and how fish sometimes follow underground springs, and how one day, a fish from the nearby Browns River and I both found our way to a test well. And how I reckon the trail that fish followed still calls a few to explore the subterranean spring leading up to the STEP system, then naturally they get into the septic tank, then get pumped to the leach field. 

I tell’em listen closely, folks. If you hear those pumps working extra hard, that’s because some strong and likely big fish is fighting its last fight to make its way back to the Browns River. 

My Motto: LAUGH, dream, try, and do good. - Bernie

Comments: C.S. asks, "Thanks for sharing this amazing story! 

Was it a Brown Trout?"