Sleep, or Lack Thereof

A few days ago someone came to my front door and knocked.  I jumped out of bed, slipped into some jeans and opened the door to find a neighbor waiting for me.

“Did I wake you?  I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, but that’s okay.  I can always go back to sleep.”

“But it’s after noon.”

That’s when I realized I’ve given up on any regular sleep schedule.

“I know, but I was up late last night.”  I don’t think he believed me.

For years I rarely slept more than a few hours a week as I traveled almost non-stop for a company.  And for years after that it was difficult for me to sleep more than three or four hours a night, just because I didn’t know how to do it.  Finally I reached a five to six hour per night average, and there it stayed for about thirty years.  Then things changed.

For some reason I started staying up late at night to work on projects, or read, or watch the television, etc.  Then I would sleep a couple of hours and get up again to do some more of whatever I had been doing before sleeping.  After a few months, I began to stay up longer and sleep later until I found myself getting up to start the day somewhere between 11am and 1pm.

Once upon a time I had no problem being at a fishing hole at sunrise.  If someone said we need to be somewhere by 4am to start our hike to someplace, I was there at 3:30am.  I never minded getting up very early to do something outdoors, even if it meant I could not go to bed the night before.  No big deal.

Times have changed, and so have I.  Recently I thought about walking across the street to catch some sunrise surf fishing.  I came closer to making it there at sunset.  I don’t completely understand this.  I really like to fish, I just don’t like keeping a time schedule.  But I decided to get my act together and do something about it.

On Wednesday last week, I gathered my surf fly fishing gear together and put it into the car so I could drive to my favorite surf fishing spot on the peninsula about a mile from where I live.  Wednesday evening I went to bed early and slept straight through until 5am.  At that time I got up, put on my clothes, fixed a little breakfast, sat down at my computer to check overnight emails, and dozed off until 10:30.

I hate to admit it, but this isn’t the first time I’ve done this.  Nor is it the second, third, or twenty-fifth.  Well, I left everything in the trunk of the car, and tomorrow I’m trying again.  This time I’m really going to do it.  No more excuses.

Follow up:  It’s 11:15am.  Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.  I’ve rescheduled my outing to next Tuesday.

*******

I wrote this a few months ago with all intents to go fishing on Tuesday.  Oh, well.  Since then I moved several miles away, and I’ve been exploring new areas for fishing.  Many great possibilities are within a short drive from my home.  Now, if I could just get up in the morning.

Fly Shop

I grew up in fishing country, Texas to be exact.  Every hardware store in the state sold fishing equipment, and some even sold a few tools and nails.  My personal favorite was Buddies Hardware, which was really no more than an extension of Buddies Grocery Store.  The reasons I preferred it were relatively simple.  First because it was just a few blocks from my home, and second because I could get food and bait at the same time. 

Over time stores began to appear specializing in sporting goods, but most carried only the most basic fishing supplies.  But then again, this was Texas, and serious fishing was done with just basic equipment.  The simpler the better.  I don’t recall when the hardware stores began to drop the line of fishing gear in favor of such mundane items as hammers and screwdrivers, but over time I realized that a major change had taken place.

I’ve fished with a tree branch, trimmed of excess leaves and twigs, attached to kite string tied to a bent nail with a worm from the garden stuck on it.  For a float, I used one of the excess twigs trimmed from the tree branch.  And it worked.  Sometimes I didn’t even use the tree branch.  But my grandfather had a more novel approach to fishing.

Papa had a small boat he had nailed together from old lumber he had around the farm.  It weighed about 10,000 pounds as far as I was concerned, but he was able to load it into the back end of his 1938 Ford Coupe and tie it so it wouldn’t fall out onto the road again.  We would drive to one of the nearby stock tanks (a man-made watering hole for cattle and coyotes) and go fishing.

Once we had the boat in the middle of the tank, he would unbox his “fishing gear.”  It was an old crank box telephone with two long bare wires coming out of the back.  He would throw one wire over each side of the boat into the water and give the box a few fast cranks.  Over the next 30 or 40 seconds fish would float to the surface and we could pick the biggest ones to take home for dinner.  This was fishing at its best.

One day Papa came home with a store-bought boat.  It may have been 3^rd or 4^th hand, but at one time it was store bought.  The boat was a 10 foot jon boat, and it was a thing of beauty.  While it was still heavy to me, I could actually load it into the back of the old car by myself, but Papa still insisted on tying it down himself.  It didn’t take long for us to try it out.

We drove out to a rather large stock tank on a friend’s property a few miles away and launched the boat.  We climbed in, rowed to the middle and tossed over the wires.  In his usual manner, Papa gave the old telephone a few quick cranks, but it was only momentum that created all cranks after one.  We realized a little too late that electricity, water, and a metal jon boat do not go well together.  In a vain attempt to remedy the situation, he tried to uncrank it, which produced the same effect.

The fish floated to the surface as they always did, but this time we just looked at them with compassion.  We saw any number of potential dinner options, but we were just too, um, stunned to take advantage of the situation.  By the time we could gather our wits about us, the fish had recovered enough to swim back to the bottom of the tank.  Our only choice now was to crank the telephone again or just go home.

It was a long five miles home.  We carried the jon boat over to where the old wooden boat lay and set it along side the old craft.  And we stood there looking at the two boats for several minutes before putting away the telephone on its shelf in the nearby barn.

We never spoke to each other about the lesson learned that day, much less to anyone else for many years.  Actually he passed away without ever saying anything about it at all.  The jon boat simply disappeared one day, and the old wooden boat rotted beyond repair from lack of use.  The lesson I learned from it was to go back to what I knew best, a string, some kind of a float such as a cork, a hook, and a worm.  This brings me back to the evolution of the sporting goods store. 

           

When the hardware stores began to decline from their glory days as the place to buy fishing equipment, the sporting goods stores started carrying more fishing items.  The problem I had with these stores was that no one there knew anything about fishing. 

The stores carried backpacks and camping equipment.  I could understand this since fishing could occasionally involve some hiking and quite often a few nights of camping.  I could understand the football equipment, the baseball equipment, and even the basketball equipment.  I definitely could understand the hunting equipment.  I could not understand the skiing equipment, especially in Texas.  I could not understand the specialized clothes that everyone seemed to need to ski, hunt, or fish.  I could not understand why the people working the store knew everything about skiing and nothing about anything else.

The fisherman was now on his own.  No longer could he go to local hardware store and find out where the fish were biting.  No longer could he ask for a specific size of hook and get it.  No longer could fishing stories be swapped with someone who had been there and let the big one get away.  The sporting goods stores were just a big cold place with little to offer the traditional Texas fisherman.

It didn’t take long for someone to realize the problem.  I began to see something called Tackle Stores pop up around the state.  These were much better than the sporting goods stores in that the people running them did know something about fishing, and the product line was all about fishing, but the personal relationship once developed in the local hardware store was missing.  Still it was better than nothing.

I fished for many years under the guidance of these sporting goods stores and tackle stores, largely having to figure things out for myself.  When I took up fly-fishing, I assumed that little would change in the situation.  There is, however, something I was not expecting to find—The Fly Shop.

They don’t sell nails, hammers, lumber, or chain.  They don’t have 16 year olds expounding the virtues of snowboards.  They don’t have footballs, baseballs, or basketballs.  They sell fishing equipment, albeit very specialized equipment.  This is the dream I lost when the hardware stores started selling nails, hammers, lumber, and chain. 

I was directed to one of the few remaining fly fishing stores in Southern California by the fly fishers I met at the Long Beach Casting Club.  Actually, they told me of 5 or 6 stores, but only one was near to my home, so I went there.  I walked in the door and just stood there blocking the aisle for about one minute.  That’s how long it took for someone to offer to help me.  I don’t believe I’ve had anyone offer to help me with fishing equipment in 30 years or more.  Not only was this person willing to help, but he also actually fished on a regular basis.  I walked into the store expecting nothing.  I walked out of the store having had all my dreams fulfilled.  Well, most of them.  Some we don’t talk about.

I have since been to many fly-fishing stores.  They range from sophisticated operations to small one-person shops, but in each and every one I can expect and get personal attention by someone who knows what they are talking about.  Well, at least they know more than me.  But I have never met anyone working such a store that doesn’t fly fish.  The person may be happy, grumpy, tired, bored, or something else altogether, but they all speak with some knowledge.  They know the best rivers and lakes in the area, and where to fish on them, and what to fish with.  They know all the secrets of the local area and often far beyond its borders.  They know I’m not there just to buy some flies or leaders or other trinkets, although they gladly take my money for them, they know I’m there to pick their brains about fishing.  And they give freely of their knowledge.

I’ve been a fly fisherman for just a short amount of time, but during this brief adventure, no fewer than four store closures have come to my attention with many others obviously struggling.  Can the fishing community afford to allow the Fly Shops go the way of the old Hardware Stores?  I think not.  Yes, there are many tackle shops around, and they are decidedly better than the ones of 30 or 40 years ago, but few have much in the way of fly-fishing equipment.  While fly-fishing is probably not going away anytime soon, the local suppliers may need to turn to nails, hammers, lumber, and chain to keep their doors open.

Trotline

The idea of fishing encompasses many techniques.  Most involve a pole with a string and a hook, but there are other techniques.  Spear fishing is one of those approaches most people have heard of, and so is netting.  However, there are other ways to catch fish.  Noodling works for some people, and so do fish traps.  Electro-stunning is quite frowned upon, and even dynamite is used on occasion.  One of the least publicized is the trotline.

A trotline is simply a rope strung between two points and a number of short strings with baited hooks attached at intervals.  This is lowered into the water and left alone for a day.  With some luck, there will be fish on those hooks when one returns.  I consider this a lazy way to catch fish, but once when I had a few days in town I decided to give it a try.

My great-uncle Sam was adamantly against using a trotline, but he agreed with me that I should try it at least once in order to know what it was about.  He showed me how to build it and gave me a few pointers about setting the hook depth.  He even suggested a few places where I might wish to set it up.  If he didn’t use a trotline, how did he know so much about it?

I had listened to Sam for about a year as he taught me about fishing, and he was always right.  There was no exception, and that’s no exaggeration.  He was always right.  That man knew how to fish, and when he said to do this or try that, I did it.  And he was always right.

I loaded the trotline parts into my canoe and paddled over to a large inlet where a stream was emptying into the lake.  It was a wide inlet and about 7 or 8 feet deep at the center, but I had never seen anyone use the stream for anything, so I set up my trotline across the mouth.

I strung the rope from one stump sticking up out of the water to a stick in the water on the other side.  There were any number of stumps and sticks available, but I chose according to convenience.  I probed the depths to determine how deep to set the hooks and tied them onto the strings accordingly as I spaced them along the rope.  And I baited with a variety of items from bacon rind to chunks of fish from previous outings.  Then I paddled back to our dock and drove home.

The next afternoon I arrived back at the trotline and was disappointed to find my hooks still baited.  I checked each one, replaced a couple that needed replacing, and paddled back to the dock.  I walked over to Sam’s house and told him what I had found.

He scratched his whiskery chin and stared at the floor for a few minutes, and then he decided to take a look for himself.  We could take the canoe, but I had to do all the work.  Fine with me.  Within an hour were back at the trotline where he spent about 2 minutes looking over how I had it set up.

“You attached the rope to the wrong stick.  Move it over to that one next to it.”

I looked at the stick just 6 inches away and wondered why 6 inches could make a difference, but I didn’t say anything, I just moved the rope.  That was all.  We, uh, I paddled back to the dock.  Sam got out of the canoe then told me to go back and collect my fish.  By now I was getting tired.  The sun was getting low, but I still had about 2 hours of light left, so I paddled back.

The first thing I noticed was the rope moving around and the stick was bending back and forth.  I had a fish on one of the hooks, but which one?  I started along the line pulling up the strings one at a time.  By the time I pulled up the last string, I had 8 catfish from 15 to 20 inches long.  The rest were a bit smaller, although I kept them anyway.  I re-baited my hooks and paddled home.

I cleaned the fish and packed them away before putting away my canoe.  Then I sat down with Sam and asked how moving the rope just 6 inches could make so much difference.  His response was that the rope needed to line up with the noon sun on June 21^st.  Huh??  I never did get an answer that made sense, but the next morning the trotline was full again.

Just to test his theory, I moved the rope back to the original stick, and that evening I went fishless.  I moved the line back, and the next morning, my trotline was full again.  I was convinced Sam knew something he wasn’t sharing with me, but he stayed with his story.

I never had the opportunity to run the trotline again, so I’ve never tested the theory at a different location, but at the same time I keep remembering Sam was never wrong on anything else about fishing.

Ice Fishing

I like warm weather.  Today is July 4^th, and it’s warm outside.  Actually, it’s almost hot, but that’s okay.  I can always find a cool spot if I need it, but I can never seem to find a way to get warm when it’s cold outside.

I’ve lived most of my life in places like Texas, southern California, and Arizona, and I have rarely allowed myself to experience the cold.  At various times circumstances dictated a trip to cold country, but a shivering body and chattering teeth are not my favorite forms of exercise.  I think it is great that some persons like to ski, or ice skate, or snowboard.  I think it is great that some persons ride snowmobiles and some persons ride bobsleds.  I think it is great that Santa lives at the North Pole.  I think it is great that I live where it is warm.

In Fort Worth the temperature would occasionally drop below freezing in the winter and a reading of ‘zero’ was not overly unusual, but warmer days were never far off.  In Arizona cold nights were not uncommon, but warm days were expected.  And I’ve never seen snow in Long Beach, CA. 

My first experience with extreme cold was on a business trip to Great Falls, Montana.  I left Dallas in 70-degree weather and landed in Great Falls in minus 40-degree weather.  I had on a heavy coat, but it wasn’t enough.  When I stepped off the plane, I could instantly feel my various parts freezing.  Or maybe the problem was that I couldn’t feel my various parts freezing.  My parts were growing numb very fast.  I wore a handlebar mustache in those days, and when I placed my hand over my face to protect it from the weather, I broke off one side of my mustache.  It had instantly frozen.  So I did the only thing that made sense at the time—I broke off the other side.  Oh, well.

I rented a car that had a block heater.  At my motel I could park just outside my door and plug in the car to an electrical outlet to keep the engine block warm without running the car all night.  Cool.  (Maybe that was the wrong expression.)  I parked the car and went inside to get the extension cord the motel provided.  When I tossed it out of the door to uncoil it, the cord shattered in mid-toss.  It froze as fast as my mustache.  I guess that was the reason the motel had about a dozen extension cords in my room.

The following morning I met with the manager of the store I was visiting, and all he could do was stare at my face.  Finally I asked him if something was wrong.

“It’s your mustache.  Why is it so lopsided?  And your hair is a different length on each side.  Is this a new trend that hasn’t reached Montana yet?”

I knew my mustache had a problem, but my hair?  Apparently I had managed to break off a large portion of my hair on the way to the store that morning.  I wanted to go home.

On a business trip to Minnesota, I was talked into some ice fishing.  The temperature was only about 10 below so I wasn’t too worried about my newly re-grown mustache, but it was still very cold.  Leonard, the store manager, assured me we would be quite comfortable.  He had an ice hut.  I didn’t understand exactly what I was getting into, but I was reluctantly willing to give it a try.

About 5am we were standing at the edge of a frozen lake with a sled full of our gear.  Maybe I should say that it was all Leonard’s gear.  I owned absolutely nothing suited for this adventure.  In the dark distance I could see a number of cabin-like structures sitting out on the ice and most of them had smoke emanating from a pipe extending through the roof.  We were going out to the red one.  Wait, they were all red, but Leonard knew exactly which one was his.

I had never walked very far on ice before, but it wasn’t as difficult as I had supposed it would be.  Visions of slipping and sliding and falling were going through my brain, but nothing like that happened.  I just walked normally, and together we pulled the sled behind us to Leonard’s ice hut where a sign on the door identified him as the owner.

Inside we were sheltered from the elements to a degree.  The hut was about six feet wide and about eight feet long and had a wooden floor in it with a trap door that could be lifted up to expose the ice underneath.  There was a small cast iron stove at one end in which Leonard started a wood fire.  Soon there was a coffee pot on top of the stove and we were getting ready to fish.

The first thing to do was to open the trap door and cut a hole in the ice.  Leonard used an auger and a metal spade to accomplish this, and he threw the excess ice into a bucket and then he then tossed the contents out of the door.  He opened a small box and removed from it some heavy fishing line with a leader and a lure of some kind attached to the end.  Into the hole he dropped the lure and lowered the line about 10 feet.  And he sat there holding that line.  Occasionally Leonard would raise and lower the line a few inches, but mostly he sat there.  Finally I asked him what came next.

“Oh, well, uh, not much unless a fish bites.  Sometimes we need to scoop out the ice from the hole.  It re-freezes quickly.”  Leonard was happy, but I was bored—and cold.

It didn’t take me long to realize that only one person fished at a time, and Leonard was doing the fishing.  My job was to sit quietly, sip coffee, and keep the fire in the stove going.  After an hour of so of this, Leonard handed me the line so I could take a turn “fishing.”  No sooner than I had taken the line, a fish took the lure.

It wasn’t a big fish, although it did require some effort to retrieve.  I’ve never been much for hand line fishing, but when attempting it with cold hands and heavy gloves, it becomes rather difficult.  I couldn’t feel the fishing line through the gloves.  In fact, I couldn’t feel the inside of my gloves with my cold hands.  But I managed to get the fish up through the hole and into the cabin.  It wiggled for about ten seconds before freezing, and after I removed the lure, the fish was tossed into the corner of the cabin.  We didn’t need an ice chest—we were sitting in a freezer.

Then Leonard took over the fishing duties again, and I can honestly say I was glad he did.  I believe I could find more enjoyment by watching paint dry.  I was cold, I was bored, I was cold.  I threw more wood into the stove, poured another cup of coffee, and I waited.  About 10am I began to wonder what was going on outside the hut.  I opened the door to see snow falling and several men pulling their sleds back toward the edge of the lake.  Maybe it was time to go.

Leonard laughed at the idea.  “Wimps!  They’re just fair weather fishermen.  Afraid of a little snow.”  Apparently we weren’t going to go.

At last Leonard caught a fish and tossed it over with the other one.  I took the line when he handed it back to me, and I dropped the lure back into the hole.  And I sat there with Leonard looking at me as though he was the happiest man on this earth.  Maybe he was.  He was certainly happier than me.

It was well into the afternoon when I caught another fish, and I thought we would go home at this point, but I was incorrect about this.  Leonard wanted to give it another try.  I opened the door again to look out at the snow and could see little more than a gray/white fog.  Now I was starting to worry.  I actually had thoughts of abandoning this effort and trying to find my own way back to the truck.  But, 1) I didn’t have a clue where the truck was, and 2) Leonard had the keys.  I closed the door, threw some wood into the stove, poured another cup of coffee, and sat down.

Leonard caught his second fish about 5:30 and said that was probably about all the fish were going to pull out of there today.  At last he was going home.  We packed our things (including the four fish) onto the sled and started off into the now very dark fog.  With unerring accuracy we walked to the truck and within an hour I was back in my hotel room where it was warm.  Warm.

I was to visit Leonard’s store several more times over the next few years, but always in the summer.  He would constantly remind me of the great time we experienced ice fishing, and he would never forget to invite me back; however, for some strange reason, my visits to his store were always in the summer.

The West Fork

The San Gabriel River is in the Los Angeles Forest area of the San Gabriel Mountains just north of the town of Azusa.  It consists of three main forks—East Fork, North Fork, and West Fork—along with several other creeks and small rivers as tributaries.  I’ve never fished the North Fork, and I have rarely heard of anyone who has done so, but I have fished both the East and West Forks of the river, and I managed to find trout in each one.

 

The San Gabriel River completes its journey just a mile from where I live, emptying its waters into the Pacific Ocean after a winding through a number of Southern California cities.  The waters are dammed into reservoirs just before exiting the mountains, trapped in flood control projects along the side of a freeway, channeled through concrete troughs, and used to provide steam for electrical plants before it finally finds rest in the ocean.  But that’s just part of the story.

 

Along the East Fork is a road for a few miles from where one can easily reach the water for some recreational fishing.  Where the road ends, a person can hike along a trail above the water (occasionally crossing it) for a few more miles before arriving at the Bridge to Nowhere.  This oddity was constructed in the 1930’s for a road that was never built, and there it stands today as a launching place for bungee jumpers.

 

The fishing along the East Fork is interesting.  From the end of the road to the Bridge to Nowhere, the fishing is acceptable at times, but a bit difficult to reach, and for someone not in good shape (yours truly) the fishing is better elsewhere.   From the end of the road and westward, the East Fork has other fishing problems.  First are the gold miners.  They are somewhat touchy about someone jumping their claim, and distance from these unique persons is prudent.  The other main problem is the, um, ‘city wildlife.’  These critters have no regard for anyone else and don’t mind jumping into the water right in front of a fisherman.  And the trash.  And the dirty diapers.  And the graffiti.  There are fish in the waters, and they can be caught, but…

 

This leaves the West Fork.  At the main road, the side road to the West Fork is gated to prevent traffic along this fragile ecosystem.  It’s okay to hike or bike in, but motorized traffic is limited to service vehicles or, with permits, handicap access.  About one mile is the maximum the ‘city wildlife’ is willing to travel on foot, so for those individuals able to hike, bike, or gain handicap access, the upper reaches of this stream can be a delight to fish.

 

There are four handicap access ramps leading down to the river making access to the water very simple; however along most of the water, the access is rarely difficult.  The flow of the water is dependent upon the release rate from the dam at the Cogswell Reservoir just up stream (which means this is a tail water fishery), but rarely is the water too high or too fast to provide a good time for a fisherman.  The trout seem to range in size up to twelve or thirteen inches, but most are in the four to seven inch category.  Still, they are trout, and they are fun to catch.

 

I’ve been on the West Fork several times, and I look forward to going back again soon.  This is one of the few waters accessible from Southern California where one can still fish with a degree of solitude.  I’m certain the ‘city wildlife’ have made it back this far on occasion.  I’ve seen the scars where the graffiti on the rocks has been painted out or scrubbed off, and I’ve heard of vandalism to Forest Service signage, but the critters have been out of my line of sight.  And it’s been quite.

Hank

I’ve received several requests for some more stories involving my friend Hank.  In my posts, I believe the first mention of him was in my 9^th post “Catfish”, and my second mentioned was in my 51^st post “I Dare You”.  He has appeared from time to time in some of my stories, and he will most likely appear again, but it is difficult for me to write about him.

 

Over the lengthening years of my life I have lost many friends and family members.  Some moved on, sometimes I moved on.  Some were killed by war, accident or disease, and some were far older than me and time took its toll.  But Hank’s death was much harder on me than most.

 

I grew up with a very large extended family.  My four grandparents had over forty siblings.  Most of these family members were very prolific; however, my parents were the only surviving children of their parents.  But many of my grandparent’s generation lived to be well over one hundred years of age.  By the time I was a teenager I had a family of many hundreds of members.

 

This also meant I attended many funerals.  Some months I attended more than one on the same day, and most months had at least one.  I was no stranger to losing people I liked and loved.  But Hank’s passing was like losing my own brother and best friend at the same time; therefore, writing about him is difficult.

 

On the positive side, our adventures together were great fun, and I will continue to remember the good times with him in some of my stories.  Here is a short one.

 

One afternoon I had a message waiting for me at a company store I was visiting in Alabama.  It was from Hank, and it said he was on his way to do some fishing in Montana.  If I could meet up with him in Billings in a few days, we could find out what kind of fish were in the Yellowstone River.  I was leaving that afternoon for Cheyenne, Wyoming for a business meeting, but I could take a couple of days to fish up in Montana after it was over.

 

I flew into the airport at Billings and rented a car to drive down into the city (the Billings airport is high up on a plateau above the city) and catch up with Hank at the hotel where he was staying.  When I drove into the parking lot of the hotel, I saw Hank getting out of his car with a big ice chest.  I let him struggle with it while I unloaded my baggage and headed in to get a room.  About an hour later we met in the lobby.

 

“I just talked to the chef, and he’s going to prepare dinner for us with the trout I caught today.”

 

Dinner that night was great.  I can’t recall a better trout dinner.

 

About 4:30 the next morning we left to drive to his fishing hole where he assured me there were more fish than we could handle.  However, when we got there, we couldn’t find a place to park.  Apparently this fishing hole was known to more than just Hank, so we drove up the highway a few more miles.

 

We stopped at a small coffee shop for breakfast, and while we were discussing where to go fishing, a gentleman came over to speak with us.

 

“I couldn’t help but overhear your situation.  Around here the best fishing spots are on private property, and you have to know someone to go there.  But if you don’t mind me tagging along, we can go to my ranch, and I’ll show you more trout than you’ve ever seen.”

 

It seems that we hit the jackpot.  We finished breakfast, and an hour later we were fishing.  Hank sat down on the bank beside the gentleman and started talking.  Before long they discovered they had family ties through marriage.  I don’t know how that worked out, but apparently they were some kind of cousins.  And we had a permanent invitation to visit and fish just about anytime we wanted.

 

Hank seemed to have relatives everywhere.  Over the few years of our adventures, we were joined in Tennessee by a cousin, in Utah by an uncle, in New Hampshire by a, uh, another relative, in New York by his grandfather, in California by some other relative, and in several other places by various family members.

 

We fished until early afternoon when hunger began to talk to us.  After packing things back into the car, Hank and I followed his newly found cousin to the ranch headquarters where lunch was being provided for the nearby workers.  For those hands farther out, a truck would be delivering boxed lunches for them.

 

The afternoon was spent just talking and having fun with our host.  He was a fourth generation rancher, and his wife was a fifth generation rancher.  Hank’s connection to them was never clear to me, but they figured it out and talked for a solid hour about people they both knew.

 

It wasn’t much of an adventure with Hank, but it was typical of many of our outings.  We basically just hung out together and did things we enjoyed.  This day was one of those hang out days.  Afterward, we went back to the hotel where we had dinner and talked about our upcoming first skydive.  See “I Dare You.”

Fishing Local

In Southern California exists an unexplainable urge to turn all rivers into a cement trough.  Actually the idea is to keep the waters manageable during the floods that occur after a hard rain, but the concept of a ‘river’ disappears in all the cement.  For anyone wanting to fish the local waters, this limits the choices; however, there are still a number of places to hunt for fish.  Whether or not the fish are actually there may be another story.

 

Recently Clark and I headed to some of the local parks to fly fish.  These parks ranged in size from an acre or so to two rather large pieces of turf covering many city blocks each.  All of the parks had at least one pond or small lake stocked with trout and other fish by the Department of Fish and Game, or so it is rumored.

 

The first stop was a very small pond about eight miles away.  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this many ducks in one place in my life.  If there was water in the pond, it was under a thick layer of, um, duck exhaust.  And the smell.  I’ve spent many years around farm animals, and this was as bad a smell as I’ve ever experienced.  Needless to say, we drove to the next park on our list.

 

Park number two was about two or three miles away from the first park, and it showed some promise.  The pond was maybe 40 yards wide at it greatest width and no more than a hundred yards long, and it was ringed with fisherpersons (is that the right term?) standing on the concrete sidewalk around its perimeter.  They must know something about this place for so many to be fishing at one time.  We spent about an hour or so there and came to the conclusion that the fisherpersons were wrong.

 

From there we journeyed a couple of miles to a large park with a small lake that covered several acres.  Now this looked like a place to fish.  The banks were dirt, grass, and mud just like it should be.  There was stuff growing in the water along the edges, and there were birds flying overhead.  (Not that the birds had an effect on the conditions of this lake, I just happen to like birds around.)  But after an hour or so Clark and I decided to try elsewhere.

 

The last stop of the day was at Eldorado Park.  This is a very big city park with several ponds and lakes that are stocked occasionally by the Department of Fish and Game with trout, bass, catfish, etc., depending on the season.  We had heard that Area III is the place to fish, and we wanted to give it a try.  But it wasn’t our day.  Living in southern California has the occasional disadvantage of areas restricted for temporary use by the film industry, and this was one of those days.  So we drove around the remainder of the park checking out the concrete ponds.

 

There was, however, one place known as Horseshoe Lake.  It is a small impoundment with no concrete in sight, and it looked fishable.  For two hours we tossed our artificials into the water, and we had a couple of hits, but no fish were brought to hand.  Since these were the only hits of the day, we had to chalk this outing up to the enjoyment of the outdoors.

 

Since that day Clark and I revisited Eldorado Park.  I believe I could copy the last two paragraphs word for word concerning the second visit.  The one change would be that the Department of Fish and Game was about five minutes ahead of us entering the park; however, they dropped the fish into Area III, which was still off limits due to use by the film industry.  Rats!

Noodler

My fishing experiences have included some rather unorthodox methods of attracting fish.  Sure I’ve used a cane pole with a string and a hook attached.  And there was the trotline.   An old crank box telephone shocked more than a few fish to the surface, and a throw net brought in a few things other than fish.  I bow hunted fish on many occasions, and once tried my hand at spear fishing.  But the craziest fishing method I ever tried was noodling.

 

It would not surprise me to find out that most fishermen have seen illustrations concerning how to fish.  Any library in the country probably has more than a few books on the subject, and I know many fishermen who own a personal library on the topic.  I know I must own more than twenty books on how to fish various waters with an endless array of equipment.  And in several of these books are illustrations of someone reaching under a cut bank to grab a fish.  That technique is known as noodling.

 

In many states noodling is either illegal or is considered to be so ridiculous as to not even need a law.  Who in their right mind would reach under a bank to grab at an unknown entity?  Did it ever occur to anyone that it might not be a fish under that bank?  Most states understand that it is impossible to stop people from noodling and rarely enforce any laws as may exist on the subject.  There is a prevailing opinion that a noodler takes extreme risks, and if something goes wrong, the self-inflicted punishment is both justified and sufficient.  But noodlers are a breed of their own.

 

A neighboring state just to the north of Texas (I won’t say which one, but that’s OK) has some prime noodling waters.  At least according to my cousin.  My cousin was a noodler.  I don’t know why my cousin was a noodler, but he was a noodler.  He wasn’t raised that way.   I guess he just fell in with the wrong crowd.  Vern lived for just two things (three if one includes beer) and those were bull riding and noodling.  By far the bull riding was higher on the intelligence scale.

 

I didn’t see Vern very often due to the fact he was usually in some hospital somewhere recovering from bull riding or noodling, but we came across each other from time to time at my grandparent’s lake property.  On one occasion I was telling him about my hunt for a giant catfish at Possum Kingdom Lake west of Fort Worth.  He responded with stories of catching catfish by hand.  I knew he had been doing this for a few years, but this was something we in the family just didn’t talk about.  However, it was now in the open.  Vern came out from under the cut bank and was actually admitting he was a noodler.

 

My sense of adventure prevented me from just walking away from this nonsense, and by the evening I was thinking I might give it a try.  “Might” is the key word here.  I didn’t say I “Would” give it a try.  At the very least I wanted to see for myself how it was done.  Vern said he would pick me up in a couple of weeks and we would drive to his favorite noodling hole about a hundred miles to the north.  I felt a small panic attack start in my toes and work itself upward to my head.  The only thing I thought could be worse than noodling was riding somewhere with Vern.

 

I arranged to have a business meeting in Oklahoma City so I could meet up with Vern at the chosen lake and not have to ride anywhere with him.  This was a wise idea.  Trust me.  The lake was a number of miles away from my business meeting, but it was a lifetime of driving closer than had I ridden there from Texas with Vern at the wheel.  We met up at the appointed place.  I showed up about two hours late thinking Vern would just be arriving about that time, but I was still almost three hours early, so I used the time to watch some noodlers in action.  Oh, boy.

 

The first man was a loner.  He parked his truck a short distance from my car and started taking off his clothes.  He put on some shorts (thank God) and a pair of old tennis shoes, grabbed a coil of rope, and walked down the slope to the water’s edge.  He stepped into the water and began walking along the edge of the bank to an area of overhang.

 

I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but it appeared he was feeling the bank under the water with his feet.  Then he stopped, dived under the water for a long time, and finally came up with a big catfish.  His hand was in the big fish’s mouth with his fingers sticking out of the gills.  And the fish was thrashing hard.  More than once the man disappeared back under the water from fighting the fish, but he kept his hand in that fish’s mouth anyway.  After several minutes he managed to get the rope looped through the gills and mouth and started towing the monster back to where he had entered the water.

 

I watched him haul the fish up onto dry ground and tie the rope to a tree so it couldn’t thrash its way back to the water.  The man walked back to his truck where he picked up his club and knife to do what he had to do to keep the fish.  After he put the cleaned fish into his ice chest, he calmly dressed, then walked over to me with a short piece of rope.

 

“Can you wrap this thing around my left arm just above the elbow?  And pull it real tight.”  I looked at his left arm and saw the snakebites.  Four of them.  “Water moccasins got me again.  Gotta’ go see the doc.”

 

My eyes followed him as he drove away, but I soon turned my attention to a group of four or five men working their way along a bank about two hundred yards away.  I could see the rope one man was hauling behind him and it looked as though they had already been successful.  I watched as one of the men dived under the water and came up with another catfish, but he had some help wrestling it, and soon it was on the rope with the others.

 

When they reached the sloped area where they could exit the water, they dragged their fish up onto the ground and tied them to the same tree the previous man had used.  Then one of them trotted up to the road and disappeared while the others produced a knife and began cleaning the fish.  Later the man who had disappeared returned with a truck and several large ice chests.

 

I took a few minutes to talk with the men about their adventures in noodling.  One man was missing several fingers from a snapping turtle mistake a few years earlier.  And another man had a heavily scarred arm from a beaver.  Apparently snapping turtles and beavers are as much a problem to noodlers as are snakes.  Every one of the men had been bitten more than once by various poisonous snakes.  I was beginning to think I needed to miss my appointment with Vern.  After all, he was running very late, and I could say I had to get back to a meeting.

 

The men left with their catch, and Vern arrived before their dust settled.  I told him about what I had seen, and he just laughed.  “Goes with the territory,” was his only comment about it.  Well, I had committed myself to this, so I was going through with it.

 

We drove to a nearby place that Vern believed held opportunities to noodle a catfish out of its hole in the bank.  We entered the water and worked our way along a bank.  Vern found a hole and had me feel of it with my foot so I would know what to look for in the future (like I was really going to do this in the future).  Then he pushed his foot deep into the hole to determine if there was something in there, and there was.  Just what it was remained an unknown at the moment.  Then Vern dived under the water.

 

I thought for a while Vern wasn’t coming up, but eventually he surfaced with his hand in the mouth of a big catfish.  And the fight was on.  I managed to get the rope looped around the fish’s tail and started dragging it to the shore.  Vern was trying to retrieve his hand, which the catfish had decided to keep as a souvenir of the event.  Ultimately I dragged the fish onto the ground and tied the rope to a nearby tree.

 

First things first, Vern’s hand needed help.  We used a t-shirt to form a wrap around his hand and forearm where the skin was missing and held it on with some masking tape.  Then we cleaned the fish.  We had just finished packing it into Vern’s ice chest when we had a visit from the Department of Game and Fish.  (Or was it Fish and Game?)

 

“You boys just noodling around?”  We answered that was what we were doing.  “Well good, ‘cause if you was fishing, I’d have to check your licenses.”  The warden looked over at Vern’s arm and said, “Looks like you took a nasty fall there.  You might want to go have a doctor look at it.”  With that he got back in his truck and drove away.

 

I actually had a valid fishing license for this state, but I doubt Vern did.  And I hadn’t really thought that noodling might be illegal here.  Most likely the warden thought Vern had already paid a price worthy of a noodler.

Sport

Today I went fishing again with Clark.  Eldorado Park is just a few miles from where we live, and several of the ponds are regularly stocked with trout, bass, and catfish, so it has become a close and quick getaway for us.  The grounds are rather large and accommodate many fisherpersons of all skill levels with ease.  We worked our way around to the far north end of Area III where access is a little more restrictive due to trees and reeds, and this is where I had a small accident.

 

Accidents are the norm with me.  I get my hand stuck in the doors at the malls.  I trip over small pebbles on the sidewalk.  I walk into trees.  Elevator doors, escalators, low tree branches—all are just accidents with my name on them.  And I absolutely fear steps and curbs.  You get the idea.  I wear trifocals after having had cataract surgery, and I just don’t notice the things that are about to bite me.  But sometimes the accidents aren’t completely my fault, although the one today was mostly my fault.  The rest of the blame goes to that big bass.

 

It was a simple thing, really.  I tossed a plastic worm through the reeds about ten feet into the water, and at the count of ‘one’ a big bass hit it.  The problem was that I was standing on a steep slippery slope and the bass just surprised me enough that I moved my feet the wrong way.  Down I went towards, and eventually into, the water.  As I fell I grabbed at a tree and left a few square inches of skin behind.  Then the bass broke the line and got away.  I’ve had worse, and I’m just fine.  But given a choice of keeping my skin or the bass, I’ll take the bass.  The skin grows back in a couple of weeks.

 

This reminded me of the number of times I’ve been told that fishing isn’t really a sport.  Football, baseball, hockey, soccer, etc., are sports; fishing is just for people without a life.  Growing up in Texas, there were those who rode horses and bulls, those who played football, those who played in a band, and those who fished.  (I would have included those who drink beer, but that category transcends all other categories.)  On the whole, the categories got along with each other, but occasionally there was an individual whose idea of a sport was very narrow.

 

I had a neighbor with a narrow mind.  In fact his forehead was only about three inches wide, and as one followed the length of his long nose downward, one could easily see that his mouth was his biggest feature.  He reminded me of a triangle with the point at the top.  He believed fishing could not possibly be a sport since one had no possibility of injury.  He did, however, believe being in a band was a sport since he personally witnessed the local high school band members whipping the football team in a Saturday afternoon game.

 

One day I had enough, and I challenged him to a weekend of combat fishing.  In exchange I would subject myself to his sport—Saturday afternoon football at the local park.  Strangely enough he agreed to this.  His only stipulation was that I had to provide my own football team to play against his.  Okay, I know about seven or eight guys who would be glad to join me, fishermen every one.

 

I picked up Willie at about five a.m. the next Saturday morning and drove him to my grandparent’s lake house where we launched one of the boats and motored over to a fishing hole.  I knew the fishing here would be good, and I knew Willie would have fun catching a few fish in spite of his idea that fishing was not a sport.  What I didn’t tell him about was long-sleeved shirts, sunscreen, bug repellant, lunch, water, a hat, and the fact that I don’t stop fishing until dark.

 

About two in the afternoon Willie was almost in tears, and I was almost feeling sorry for him, but not quite.  I do give him credit for not whining or complaining about his situation; however, I wanted him to understand that fishing is not something to make light of.  It is a sport, and it can be a tough sport.  As the sun began to settle in the west, I turned the boat back to the landing.

 

I was actually afraid I might have overdone it a bit when I discovered Willie was too stiff to get out of the boat without help.  And any help involved touching his sun-scorched skin.  For about half and hour I eased him around until the feeling returned to his legs, and finally he could step over the boat rail and climb up to the dock under his own power.  Then he discovered we still had to clean the boat and put it away right after we cleaned the fish and put them away. 

 

On the way home that night I stopped at a local burger joint to get the poor guy something to eat.  Very slowly Willie worked his way into the restaurant and into a booth where he sat staring into the distance.  When the waitress came by for our order, Willie didn’t even notice her, so I ordered for him.  When the food came, he methodically ate the burger and fries, and downed the soda without ever changing his stare into the unknown void.  When he finished, I directed him back into the car and took him home.

 

I didn’t see or hear from Willie for several weeks after that trip, but eventually he recovered, because he came over to remind me about the football game.  I invited him in and we had a talk about ‘sport.’  I didn’t convert him into a fisherman, but he was willing to concede the category of fishing did belong with horse and bull riding, football, and band.  He told me the only other time he had ever hurt so much was after the football game when the band members outscored the football team by some thirty-five points.  Anything that could cause such pain must be a sport.

 

We arranged for the football game to take place at the Peewee league field at the local park in two weeks.  It was a shorter field than regulation, but it was free to use just for requesting a reservation.  When I arrived, the first thing I noticed was about a dozen guys in helmets and pads.  But I wasn’t worried.  I brought along ten band members.

Old Badgers

In my young adult days I was standing in the right place at the right time to get a promotion at the company where I worked.  It wasn’t just any promotion, it was a big promotion.  I jumped from a local department manager to a national corporate manager by being in the physical line of sight of one of the big wigs in the company when he decided he needed some help.  I had no idea of what I was getting in to, but I was able to keep the position for almost seven years before seeking another life.

 

Due to the position, I was expected to be in each of four offices around the country at least twice every three weeks, and the rest of the time I spent on the road (or in the sky) among more than seventy territorial offices, and whenever I could spare the time, I was to visit the individual company stores.  Since I was almost completely in control of my own schedule, I was able to take “down time” just about anywhere I wished, and I used my “down time” in the best hunting and fishing areas I could find.

 

Hunting was never at the top of my list of things to do, but I did hunt a few times each year.  The basic problem was that hunting usually took more than a day to accomplish, and it almost always required “tags” to hunt what I wanted to hunt.  More often than not, I wasn’t successful when the drawings occurred, but luck was there from time to time.

 

One year I drew a deer tag for Colorado, but I missed out on the elk tag.  Oh well.  I took some of my down time in southwest Colorado in the rough Uncompahgre National Forest area and started my hunt.  I hiked about six or so miles from the campground into the wilderness where I came upon an old barbed-wire fence (in Texas we would call it bob-war).  It was mid-morning and warm so I sat down and leaned back on one of the fence posts to look out across the large mountain meadow in front of me.  I guess I was tired and fell asleep, because the next thing I knew a foot was nudging me in the side.

 

The game warden said he was just testing to see if I was alive.  Apparently I gave him some cause for concern.  He checked my rifle to see if it was loaded, chambered, safety on or off, etc., and I passed the exam since I was still carrying the rounds in my pocket instead of the rifle.  Then he asked if he could sit down and have some lunch with me.  That got my attention.  I checked my watch and realized I had been asleep at least three hours.  We had lunch.

 

Just as we were finishing up, I noticed a movement at the far end of the meadow and motioned to the warden to take a look.  Neither of us could see it clearly due to some shadows, but he encouraged me to load up and use the scope on the rifle.  I did, but it wasn’t a deer.  Instead it was an eight by eight elk.  It was beautiful, but I didn’t have the right tag, and I was sitting beside a game warden.  I handed the rifle to him to look at it, and he sat there looking at it no more than four seconds before he pulled the trigger.

 

I didn’t quite know what to do.  He handed me back the rifle and thanked me for the opportunity to harvest such a trophy.  We found the elk within twenty feet of the impact point, and it was just plain big.  The warden had some kind of a portable two-way communication radio with him, and he used it to call for help.  About forty-five minutes later, another warden with a 4 x 4 pickup arrived, and we winched the elk into the bed.  It was about that time I realized these wardens had done this before.  Now I was thinking I had better disappear before someone decides I shot the elk.  But before I had a chance to run, they drove away leaving me to my own fate.

 

Not all down times were as exciting, and few were more than just a day or so visiting the great open cathedral we call nature, but another instance comes to mind where I took a day to go fishing.

 

I was at one of our stores in Minnesota, and the store manager asked if I would like to go fishing.  The store sold licenses, so I was ready in less than an hour.  We traveled to a nearby body of water that covered maybe ten to twelve acres, and there we threw our lines in the water.  He was a fly fisherman, and I was a wannabe, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask for lessons.  Instead I used the spinning gear I always packed for my travels.  I don’t know if there were any fish in that pond, or just why we chose it in the first place, but it wasn’t work, and you know what they say about the “worst day fishing…”

 

We had been there about twenty minutes or so when we heard a racket just to the north of us.  Looking over that direction, I spotted the first badger I had ever seen outside of a picture book, zoo, or taxidermy shop.  It was actually fun to look at until I realized it was mad at me.  Apparently I had invaded its territory.

 

Reggie the store manager said that these things usually won’t try to out run us, and if we just move away it will settle down and leave us alone.  So we moved about fifty yards or so to the south.  About ten or fifteen minutes later the hissing and racket returned.  We looked up to see the badger had not given up on us.  So we moved further south and around the westward turn of the pond.  This time we were about one hundred or more yards from the critter.

 

One hundred yards wasn’t enough.  The old badger was relentless, so we moved on, this time circling around to the northwest corner of the water, where we were left in peace for about an hour.  But the peace was again disturbed, and we circled back to where we started.  When we heard the hissing again, we decided it was time to leave.  At this point one would think the badger would give up, but one would think incorrectly.

 

Reggie and I returned to the store, where we discussed business for a few hours, and then we walked over to a restaurant for dinner.  We returned to the store for another hour or two of discussions before he started to take me to my hotel for the night.  When we walked out to his car, the two rear tires were flat.  He called the car club he was a member of and soon a tow truck was there to do some tire repair.  When the first tire was pulled off, the repairman commented that we must have hit something hard to knock such a piece of the tire off.  The second tire had the same problem, but this time, caught in the cracked edges of the ruined tire was a large tuft of badger hair.

 

I had a good laugh over this, but Reggie did not.  At least not until I had him put two new tires on my expense account.  I figure that the work accomplished after the few hours of fishing was far more than if we had worked the entire day, therefore, the new tires could be justified by the time savings.  Well, that’s what I told Reggie.  When I got back to my main office in Chicago a few days later, I wrote a check to cover the tires.

 

My boss didn’t understand.  All he could comprehend was that I had used the expense account to cover personal expenses.  He backed off some when he found out I had already written the check to reimburse the company, but he didn’t let it go.  As the months went by, he would still remind me about it from time to time.

 

Almost two years later I found myself back at Reggie’s store and of course we went fishing.  Needless to say we went back to the same pond, but this time we caught a few fish, and we heard no hissing.  We laughed and joked about the badger the entire time we were there until we decided to go back to the store.  When we got to the car, the two rear tires were flat, and crawling off into the brush was the butt of our jokes from the last few hours.

 

I guess some old badgers just can’t take a joke.

Canoe

I discovered the joy of canoeing at a summer camp when I was thirteen years old, and for about thirteen more years the canoe remained my favorite watercraft.  As a fisherman, the canoe provided me with access to areas a more conventional craft couldn’t reach.  It was easier to transport, and it was just too much work for most fisherman wannabes.

 

In reality, I’ll give anyone fishing lessons, but sometimes I just want to give someone a lesson about fishing.  Anyone wanting to learn to fish has a place in my heart.  I remember when my Uncle Sam taught me how to fish.  Although I was already a decent fisherman, Sam was an expert, and I wanted to learn anything he could teach me.  I was an eager and willing student—well, maybe not so much at first, but the circumstances were a bit unique.  When Sam and I went fishing we would take one of the motored boats from the family compound and concentrate on fishing and the techniques involved.  And I would do the same for anyone desiring to learn to fish from me, but there was the occasional know-it-all.  That’s the one who went into the bow of my canoe.

 

Jerry was a wannabe and a know-it-all at the same time.  He lived about a quarter of a mile from me, and we had gone to the same schools from about the fifth grade until high school graduation.  He knew I liked to fish, and for years I heard about his exploits at this lake or that river.  His family took frequent vacations to places I could only read about in books, and he would talk endlessly about catching exotic fish in Mexico, Canada, and all over the United States.  There were times I went to the library to look up some of the fish he caught, and they were listed and illustrated, but they weren’t necessarily found where he found them.  I wondered about that, but I never said anything.

 

After graduating high school I purchased a used aluminum canoe from a summer camp when they were selling off the ones they deemed unfloatable.  I patched a couple of holes in it, and it served me well for many years.

 

Two or three years later I had a chance meeting with Jerry while picking up some fishing tackle at Buddie’s Hardware.  He was looking at the plastic floats trying to figure out the reason some were red on the bottom and white on the top and some were white on the bottom and red on the top.  I just let him keep working on that one.

 

We, rather, he began talking about his latest adventure with a trotline on Yellowstone Lake.  I knew that one didn’t happen, so I invited him to join me at my grandparent’s lake house in a couple of weeks, and we could spend the day fishing on Eagle Mountain Lake.  He thought that was a great idea.  He had a ‘new’ fishing pole he wanted to try out.

 

I noticed Robbin the sales clerk was keeping an ear toward our conversation, and she was trying hard not to smirk.  Now that girl knew fishing.  Her husband was a long time friend of mine, and he was a very good fisherman.  When he met Robbin, their first date was a group fishing trip to Grapevine Lake where she took the prize for the most fish.  Robbin looked over at me, and I gave her a wink.  When she came over to see if she could help us, I just let her handle Jerry, and I left the store.  About an hour later I came back.

 

“David, I don’t think he’s ever been fishing before.”  Robbin was almost laughing.

 

I told her of my years of suspicion, but that he confirmed it with the story of the trotline on Yellowstone Lake.  I then asked what she had sold him.  Oh boy.  Jerry had spent a small fortune.  Well, if he had any intention of ever fishing all those places he had spent years telling me about, he would be well equipped.

 

I picked up Jerry early on a Saturday morning and before the sun was creating shadows, we were in the canoe paddling across the lake.  Needless to say, I was doing the paddling, and Jerry was doing the complaining.  He was switching sides with that paddle on every stroke, and every stroke was just a water splash.  With a degree of regularity, we had to retrieve his paddle.  Finally we reached the far side of the lake where the cattails were growing and where I had caught many fish over the years.

 

Slowly I lowered the weight I used as an anchor and began to set up one of the two rods I brought along.  Jerry watched with great interest before doing something similar.  Similar but not the same.  I’m not an expert on knots, but I do know when something isn’t a knot.  I don’t know what he tied, but it wasn’t a knot; however, it really didn’t matter.  I skewered a worm on my hook, and so did Jerry.  I placed a float (white bottom, red top) about eight feet from the hook, and so did Jerry.  I tossed my line in the water, and so did Jerry—along with his rod and reel.

 

The only indication where the rod was located was the float on the surface of the water.  We retrieved his float, and he began to pull up the line as it unwound from the reel.  I estimated about two hundred fifty yards of line on the reel so Jerry was going to be busy for a while.  I had time.  Besides, I was fishing.

 

Sometime later Jerry asked me if I thought the line was tied onto the reel.  I assured him that if Robbin set it up for him, it was well tied.  He kept pulling up line.  As I pulled in my fourth fish, Jerry pulled up his rod and reel.  Now he had a choice.  He could try to rewind the line on the reel, or he could cut it off, stuff the tangle in a bag, grab another one of his four rods, and fish.  He chose to rewind.

 

It took Jerry about three quarters of an hour to realize that it was fruitless to rewind that line.  Finally he stripped off the three or four feet he had managed to get back onto the reel, cut it loose, and stuffed it into a bag.  Fifteen minutes later he had a line in the water, but I still couldn’t figure out his method of attaching the hook to the line.  A fish figured it out for me.  It wasn’t a knot.

 

Jerry needed help, but he was a self-professed expert at fishing, and there is no way he would ask.  And I didn’t offer.  I now had nine fish in the nine to fourteen inch range on my stringers (I separated bass, catfish, and crappie to different stringers—I don’t know why I did that except Sam taught me to do it), and Jerry was still trying to catch his first fish. 

 

About midday Jerry began to squirm.  He was feeling the confines of the canoe, and I admit a canoe is never very comfortable under the best of circumstances.  The need to stretch the legs is something only experience can overcome.  Jerry stood up.  Jerry fell overboard.  There are times I’m glad I require passengers to wear a life jacket, and then there was Jerry.  But he was wearing one.  I didn’t count him as my tenth fish, but I fished him out of the water and back into the canoe.  He crawled back to the bow and sat down.  At least he didn’t loose his rod this time.

 

To me midday means lunch.  I knew Jerry would not think far enough ahead to prepare a lunch, so I packed plenty.  Out of a bit of pity, I paddled to the nearest bank and let Jerry walk around on shore and stretch his legs while we were eating.

 

“Rough day, huh?”

 

“Yeah.  I never fished from a canoe before.”

 

Or from anywhere else I thought.  “It takes some getting used to.  I’ve been doing it a while.”

 

After an hour or so we climbed back into the canoe and paddled to another nearby spot where the crappie and bream tended to hang out.  I caught a few more fish, and somehow, someway, Jerry caught one.  It was a catfish a full two feet long.  A fish to be proud of.  The way he hooted and hollered, one would have thought he had never caught a fish before.

 

I paddled and Jerry splashed his way back across the lake to the old wooden dock near my grandparent’s house.  We set everything up on the dock and I steadied the canoe while Jerry climbed up on the dock, tripped, and fell back into the water on the other side.  Well, he had on the life jacket.

 

We carried the fish to the cleaning station where Jerry (to his credit) actually helped.  He threw up only once.  Then we packed the fish into my ice chest and carried it to the car.  We retrieved the canoe, cleaned it up, and loaded it on the racks on the top of my car.  Jerry slept all the way home.

 

I went out of town on business for a few weeks, and when I got home I was invited to have dinner with my friends Karl and Robbin.  Apparently Jerry had a great time on our outing.  Robbin said he had been into Buddie’s Hardware several times talking about the fish he caught.  When I mentioned falling out of the canoe, dropping his rod and reel overboard, and even falling off the dock, Robbin was quite surprised since there had been no mentioned of this.  However, he had purchased a canoe.