First published on 16 May 2020; the Japanese source was last updated on 10 November 2023.
Perhaps I have a duty to put this beautiful sight into words.
This madai—this red seabream—seemed to me to choose its own moment to leave this world, raising both arms—its fins—in a final banzai.
Each time the fins rose, it let out a tremendous breath.
We were bewildered, wondering what was happening.
“Shall we let it go?” I asked.
“I’ve already bled it,” my wife replied.
“Ah… yes. Of course.”
In the end, the madai stiffened with both fins pointing straight up. Then it died. Its body set in that same posture.
The moment it began
The extraordinary thing was that it had suddenly begun doing this when it saw the cooler bag.
Until then, it had been hanging quietly from the fish gripper clamped to its mouth.
Its eye fixed on the cooler bag below. That—that was the moment it began!
Afterwards, I found myself wondering whether it had recognised that bag as a… c—ffin.
If so, what an extraordinary thing.
Perhaps this particular madai had once lived as a human being. It was the sort of experience that sent thoughts like that through my head.
A fish I could not forget
With each loud, forceful breath, the fins rose higher. For those of us watching, it was a jumble of tension and bewilderment.
Whew… even remembering it now brings back the same intense excitement.
I could not help thinking what remarkable creatures madai are. They are not called “true sea bream” for nothing.
Or perhaps this was about the individual—one particular life, and its own way of being.
Whatever it was, it was a profoundly startling experience.
Related: my wife’s jigging technique, and how she caught this fish.
Image credit: “Pagrus major Red seabream ja01.jpg” by Miya, Wikimedia Commons, used under CC BY-SA 2.5. The reduced-size version already used in the Japanese article is reproduced here unchanged. It is a species photograph, rather than a photograph of the catch described above.
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