I pass street kids milling about with their fishing poles, unironically, all season long on my walk to work. 

I see the same handful of them coming into my apartment in the alley. 

I’ve never met them, which seems too bad now that I think of it. 

But one time I was walking along to work:

I live downtown and work downtown, so I simply walk out of my damp alleyway, pass Ketchikan Dry Goods, cross the red bridge on the tourist-clogged side because that’s how the crosswalk gods have deemed it, and then I look over Thomas Basin for seals, hardly ever see them, then along the parking lot pass good old Bertha the white passenger van who has become my stead, past the lumberjack show and into Salmon Landing, up the stairs and to the time clock machine to swipe my Kronos card. 

I do this six days a week, back and forth from work. It’s my commute. 

In spite of the tourist traffic on the bridge, the same fanny pack people taking pictures of the same five houses resting on piling above a creek, I can’t complain. 

One day I was walking home and skipped over, breaking the laws of jaywalking heaven forgive me, and walked along the side of the creek with the fishing locals and Salmon blood usually caked on the sidewalk next to some bonked salmon who literally don’t know what hit them. They are mammoth these guys. Just staring out at the blank canvas that was their lives and wondering what went wrong. 

The young girl who I often see wandering around the “alley” looked up at me, while she was holding her fishing pole and said “I wish I could snag.” 

I looked down at her and said “Me too, kid. Me too.” 

I looked it up because well I didn’t know. Snagging is actually illegal in a lot of states. It’s “prohibited with exceptions” in Alaska which could mean just about anything and actually applies to a lot of things in Alaska. They don’t even have to get emissions testing on the cars here.

Snagging is a form of fishing where you pierce the fish of the skin so that you don’t lose the bait. It happens anywhere other than in the mouth. I think it’s more painful for the fish but I don’t think getting caught is ever pleasant. It might be nice not to get pierced in the mouth but what do I know?