The net is full of walleye that struggle slate-eyed and slow, along with stunned suckers kissing the air and thumping along the surface. Boo and Jumbo ease the suckers out and slide them back into their element, where they mill in the slow current around the boots of the men until they slither slowly back into the river, destined for the gravel bottom to lay their eggs. A few northern pike stare sidelong at the men and gnash their spiky mouths trying to gash either net or hand. No amount of holding will quiet them. Jumbo and Boo spread the mesh with their hands and lift the northerns up tail-first, bouncing them gently so they slide back into the river, where they still for a moment and then shoot back into the channel with a furious splash, leaving a swirl in the water and a layer of slime on the men’s hands.

Soon the tub is heavy with thick-bodied walleye, nesting in a shifting heap where one, then another, will ripple and flex and then lie still, cheek plates moving in and out like the wings of scaled butterflies. The end of the net draws near and the men begin to talk and joke as they fling away the collected weeds and sticks. Simon and Ned ease up and only need to fold the net in.

Ned stands and straightens his back, groaning as he reaches into his breast pocket for his cigarettes.

“Smokin now’s better than smokin after sex.”

“Shit,” says Boo, “it’s probably the smell and the teeth that remind you of it.”

Ned laughs and smokes and is working up a comeback when Jumbo pauses and says “Wait.”

“Wait,” he repeats. They let the rope drop down in the water and lower their arms. Jumbo swivels his head and cocks it to one side.

They hear the river and the whisper of fish sliding slowly against one another in the washtub. A heron barks downriver and a beaver is gouging a ring around some doomed hardwood too close to the riverbank. Simon shuffles his feet in the water and Boo gives him a dark look lit by the glow from Ned’s cigarette. They hear nothing except the wind licking the trees. The river fog frays faintly in the predawn hush, waiting to burn up and off with the sun.

“Nothin,” says Ned as he catches hold of a fish that slurps along in the water by his feet. He lifts it up and squeezes it expertly into the tub when the night bursts open in a flood of light and a voice cracks out over the river.