Local Woman Makes International Fishing News

My parents, Lou and Terry Bors of Napa, have gone on fishing adventures in the Napa River and the shores of western Mexico. My father has been trolling the rivers and lakes of California since he was a toddler-- and once he met my mother, the two became a fishing machine. 

This past June, those two crazy kids went on their farthest fishing excursion yet, to the last great frontier of Alaska. 

I chewed my nails fretting about the situations they’d get into while trekking through the wildnerness I’d watched on Sarah Palin's Alaska. I saw the toothy bears and rugged landscapes. (And let’s not forget about Alaska’s scariest feature of all, Sarah Palin herself.)

I lectured them about safety the day they departed for the airport, but I knew I wasn’t getting through to them. They had that giddy-traveler look in their eye—I knew I’d just have to hope for the best.

Three days into their Alaskan adventure, my mother’s name appeared in the headlines of Google News. With a sigh of relief, I discovered she was not imprisoned or attacked by a wild animal (I’d heard that Sarah Palin was out of town that weekend, anyway) but had instead made International Fishing News with her prize-winning catch of a 186-pound Alaskan halibut fifty miles off the shores of Seward.

Ten hours into their chartered fishing trip, Terry had pulled a heavy line, claiming an octopus was on her rig.

She soon discovered that the mystery creature was not a tentacle-ridden cephalopod, but instead: A human-sized Alaskan halibut.

Those years of perfecting her casting and reeling were retired for the day, as her catch was so large they actually had to harpoon it.

The news may have listed the halibut as 184 pounds, but just like the true fisherwoman she is, my mother swears it was five pounds bigger.

Her trophy – the halibut’s tail, measuring 22 ½ inches—is currently being mounted. No word on whether she’ll hang the tail up at her office or at home, but I’m guessing my kindergarten artwork is going to have to find another place for display.