What Did Bush Catch? Lots of Rays and a Chance to Unwind : Presidency: Fishing trip has a typical ending. The holiday weekend shows that he’s still determined to keep active.

The skin is pasty from the winter. On the presidential middle there is a slight fold or two. Is this the George Bush of aerobic golf fame?

The man for whom a day is not complete if it does not involve running, tennis, racquetball, treadmill workouts or sweating on a stair-climbing machine?

Indeed it is. Despite the scaled-back activities--fishing one day, golf the next--as he slows down under the effects of medication to deaden his hyperactive thyroid, there is no mistaking it: Bush is playing out an age-old routine, one that pays no heed to years or position, as he begins his summer visits here, a migration as regular and determined as the trek of the Atlantic salmon up the cold, tumbling rivers of coastal Maine.

So here is the President of the United States, just off his green and white Marine Corps helicopter, reaching for a splashing garden hose for a quick, cooling drink in the 90-degree heat.

Here he is again, tugging his tucked-in dress shirt out of his business suit trousers even before walking in his front door--demonstrating a schoolboy’s eagerness to shed the confining uniform of his occupation for the more relaxed togs of a holiday.

And, one more glimpse a few minutes later: Fishing aboard his speedboat, Fidelity, on the waters of the Gulf of Maine for the first time this season, he’s yanking off his shirt, replacing it eventually with a fishing vest.

What did he catch?

“He caught a lot of rays,” White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said. In other words, the start of a typical Bush visit: lots of sunshine, few fish.

Bush brings a childlike wonder to the presidency, a gee-whiz style that belies decade after decade of work in the upper reaches of government.

Visiting with schoolchildren in St. Paul, Minn., last week, he was asked: “How does it feel to be President?”

“Well, it feels pretty good, except at times when you have some big problems out there. But I’m lucky, because I have very good people--the White House staff--very good people in the Cabinet, very good people that are working--these ambassadors and people that are working the problems. . . .

“So it’s not that complicated. You have to have good advice and there’s certain things you have to do. You just can’t say, ‘do this,’ because you have to go to Congress and work with them. But it’s a wonderful challenge. I love it. Every single day I’m there because I like it very, very much.”

The President is returning to Yale University on Monday. Or is he?

A mystery of sorts has developed around his plans for Memorial Day. By tradition, the President’s alma mater in New Haven, Conn., does not announce the identity of its featured commencement guests in advance. It is a tradition that the entire White House team in Kennebunkport is sworn to honor.

Could it all be wrapped up in the beyond-the-crypt world of the super-secret Skull and Bones Society to which Bush belonged as a member of the Class of 1948? (Actually, Bush would never admit that he belonged because then it wouldn’t be secret.)

With Skull and Bones in the midst of a bubbling controversy over plans by its current undergraduate membership to break a 159-year-old tradition and admit women, the President’s ties to the club have come under new scrutiny. Thus, the possibility of a trip to the university brings with it questions of sex discrimination and secret societies.

The rumors that Bush would deliver the commencement address--the last presidential speaker was John F. Kennedy in 1962--have nevertheless been swirling for days, despite a closed-lip performance by White House aides.

Never mind that an Army explosives expert, checking a reporter’s gear during a Bush stopover in Boston on Friday, mumbled: “See you Monday in New Haven.”

When Fitzwater was asked about Bush’s plans for Memorial Day, he would offer barely a smile--and a terse, “We have nothing for you at this time.”

The secrecy over presidential travel, he agreed, was “unprecedented.”

“It has never happened in my lifetime,” he said--overlooking a secret journey by President Lyndon B. Johnson during which reporters were loaded aboard planes and sent off to Vietnam to accompany him without being told their destination.

In any case, the White House staff members who accompanied Bush to Kennebunkport made clear that one person at the White House--in this case, the only one who counts--had no trouble living with this old school tradition.

“Everyone in the Western world has objected to this plan--except the President,” Fitzwater said.

It took Bush nearly 24 hours before he hit the golf course, for the first time since his thyroid illness was diagnosed nearly three weeks ago.

“I feel a little awkward,” said Bush, always sensitive to his performance in competitive sports. Mind you, he said: “I’m not blaming the thyroid.”

Seeming a little tired and his voice slightly raspy--the symptoms he has occasionally shown at the end of the day since begining his treatments for the overactive thyroid condition--Bush completed the 18 holes in, for him, a leisurely 2 1/2 hours.

The President has been known to complete the course at the Cape Arundel Golf Club in less than two hours, but the extra time he took Saturday did not make a noticeable improvement in his game.

His first shot landed in a sand trap. “No. No. Stinks,” Bush said.

His second shot was worse. “Oh, shucks. Well, stinks,” the President said.

And the third? “Oh, God,” Bush cried out, exasperated. “I’ll go with the first one.”