Fishing

Thank you Oley for your contribution: Fishing, A Family Activity.

I have many fond memories of fishing with family and friends.  Let me relate a few of those memories, here.

My Grandpa, and Grandma, took me fishing quite often in the creek (pronounced crick in my area), that ran through their farm.  Come to think of it; even though I never thought about this before, they never BOTH took me it was only one of them at a time.  Depending on the time of day,and day of the week.  Grandma took me during the morning when Grandpa was working,  If Grandpa was not working, he took me.

One time while fishing with my Grandpa, it wasn’t a good time to fish, we were just spending time together.  After a couple of hours and nary a bite, Grandpa said it was time to head for the house.  I began to drag my line in and met with some resistance.  Grandpa said I was probably snagged on a stick or something.  I resumed pulling in my line, and imagine our surprise, to find a sixteen inch, (I’m guessing at least two pounds, maybe more), Sucker on my hook.  (You may have different names for these fish,  depending upon where you live.  Suckers live near the bottom of the creek, and some people consider them to be scavengers).  Some people don’t consider them as edible, but my Grandma made them edible.  The three of us had a good meal from this one.  My Grandma could also make Carp taste like Bass.

Another time, while fishing with a friend, we saw a Snapping Turtle, a large one, swim under a roll of fencing that had floated down to the creek during a recent flood.  There happend to be a man wading the creek fly fishing.    We told him about the turtle, and where it went.  Would you believe he reached in there, bare handed, and pulled the turtle out.  He then explained to us a turtle has seven different meat flavors.  He was visiting his uncle, a man we knew who lived just around the corner from me.  A couple of days later his uncle asked us over and he had prepared some of the turtle for us.  (My first taste of turtle), and sure enough there were seven different tastes.  DELICIOUS !!!

Another time while visiting my uncle on his lakefront home,  my DAD, my uncle, and I were fishing off his pier.  Of course being about 13 I had to have my radio on playing good old ROCK’N’ROLL.  That is when they claimed my music was driving the fish away.  They got in the boat, and left me fishing off the pier.  About an hour to an hour and a half later when they returned with three little Crappie, I proudly showed them my stringer full of larger Crappie.  They never complained about my music playing anymore.

Lastly, the laughter was on me.  I was taking my sons fishing where I used to fish with my Grandpa and Grandma.  They were quite small and had not learned to swim yet.  I had them walking along the bank.  I was wading the creek.  They got a real big kick when I fell in a hole and came up completely drenched, trying to catchup to my hat.

But I haven’t been fishing for a long time.  The boys buy me fishing rods, that have not been out of the package, yet.  What with all the pollution in the creeks today, and around here they have warnings not to eat the fish from the creeks.  I have lost my taste for fish.  And if I did like fish, I always have a truck load.  I try to avoid bridges, when in my pickup.  You see,  The fish tend to jump out of the creek and into the bed of the truck.  Then I have to take them out and throw them back in the water.  Terrible curse I have here.

But after writing this maybe I will go fishing with my boys.  No. Not to catch fish, but just to spend time with them.  After all I really don’t have to have a hook on my line. Weight will allow me to make the casts.  They have a really nice bass boat, and enjoy fishing in contests.   We will probably win.  When I am in a boat the fish tend to leap in it, just like in my truck bed.

That Is How I See It.

PS:  A friend from Texas told me our creeks are what they call rivers in Texas.  And I thought “every thing is big in Texas”