Rooster & Bear Go Fishing

Chapter Three

By Diane Dockum

 Rooster and Bear sat on the bank of the stream with their fishing poles. Bear wished he were alone. Rooster was in his glory. The sun was bright and sparkled on the water. The air was fresh and clean.

Rooster threw back his head and let out a most awesome crow. He couldn’t help it. He was, after all, a rooster.

“SH-sh-sh” Bear said, clamping Rooster’s open beak shut with his big paw. “You’ll scare the fish away!” he reeled in his line with a jerk left and a jerk right, mumbling to himself.

Rooster stared and blinked his bright yellow eyes. He cast out his line again and wiggled his bottom down into a comfortable spot on the grass.

A beautiful rainbow colored trout leaped above the water and grabbed hold of Rooster’s line, yanking it away. It was a very big fish. Bear saw it and dropped his pole. He jumped up and started yelling instructions to Rooster.

“Hold on, hold on … now give him some slack, you got it, you got it! Start reeling him in! Pull this way – pull that way…”

“Quiet,” said Rooster, “you’ll scare him.” And he snapped his beak shut.

The big sparkling fish decided to swim up stream and Rooster, being a bird of meager* build, left the bank in a flutter of feathers and was yanked into the water, with a squawk. *(Here “meager” means slender, slight or mostly made of feathers, and not at all very strong.)

Bear’s mouth dropped open and his paws covered his face. (He was laughing, but didn’t want Rooster to see him.)

“Help!” cried Rooster as he was dragged over the rocks and up the stream.

Bear lumbered out into the water and cast his line as hard as he could. The hook attached itself to Rooster’s fishing vest and for a moment he was suspended above the water in a sort of tug-of-war moment.

Then the fish let go and Rooster flew backward toward Bear, who was standing on a large wet rock in the middle of the stream. Bear saw him coming, but didn’t think fast enough. Bear forgot to duck.

With his feet kicking wildly Rooster hit Bear in the middle of his chest and knocked him into the water.

Bear locked his right arm across Rooster’s throat, partly to save his life, and partly to shut him up, and swam heroically to shore.

“Sorry Bear,” Rooster crowed softly.

-end-