Fishing

My first fishing buddy.

I like to fish.  I don't know why.  I'm not good at it, but I've always done it.  When I was but a wee lad my grandmother would take me fishing. On a warm spring day she would show up at our house asking if I was ready to go.  She said she had everything we needed in her apron. and away we would go. I don't remember if I skipped, but I should have. Down through the cow pasture we would go with her constantly warning me to beware of cow paddies.  We were going to the big branch.  It was four feet wide in places, but when you're only a little over four feet tall, that's wide.  Upon reaching our special fishing spot we got out our gear. Grandma took two straight pins she would have normally used in sewing and bent them in the shape of a hook. Her apron also yielded up a bit of thread.  With these and the branch of a small bush we were in the fishing business.  For fish bait she had some scraps of bread moistened with saliva. With the addition of a piece of pine bark I had shaped with my knife we were fishing.  My grandmother was fearless and seemed to have everything in her apron.  I once saw her catch a turtle and deftly stab it through the neck with scissors from her apron! Those were the days of warm summer days fishing with my grandmother, which I continued until my teenage years.  Hey, when you were a teen-age boy you didn't go fishing with a pith helmet and a cane pole.

Later I fished some with my uncle Frank.  He introduced me to fishing from a boat.  It was a wooden boat with a Johnson outboard motor. It was painted red and green and white with "B-B" painted on the transom.  It was probably named for the famous French sex symbol of the time, Brigit Bardot.  Sometimes we would fish at night, tying up under bridges and railroad trestles.  We had a lantern fueled by "white gas" and Uncle Frank said it attracted snakes. According to him the snakes would try to crawl into the boat. I never saw one, but every now and again Uncle Frank would smack a paddle down hard on the gunnel of the boat and yell, "Did you see that one, boy.  It was a big 'un!" Sometimes it would rain, and my uncle said that was when fishing was real good under the bridges.  He said the fish would come under the bridge to get out of the rain. Uncle Frank was always trying to catch a "waterhorse".  I never knew exactly what one was, and I don't know if he ever caught one.  He did catch a lot of fish. But, he did fish a lot. Actually, that was about the only thing he did.

My Grandpa did catch, or rather kill, a big fish one time.  He was coming back from working in the fields when he saw a big catfish in the shallows of the farm pond.  Grandpa, who was pretty quick for a man his age, stabbed the fish with the pitchfork he was carrying. It was about three feet long and made a great catfish stew.  Catfish were considered "trash" fish by some folks, but we ate  'em.  Even Grandma's dog liked them.  Fatboy, he was a plump daschhound,  would eat a raw fish at any given opportunity.  Once while  I was fishing I was catching a lot of little catfish and throwing them back hoping to catch some larger ones.  I pulled one out and before I could pick it up to remove the hook Fatboy got it.  Think about it.  I had just caught a dog using a catfish for bait. We had to quickly cut the fishing line before cutting the barb off the hook to get it out of Fatboy's mouth.

Once when my younger brother went fishing with me he caught the bigger fish.  He was about twelve-years-old then and had a Zebco 202.   We were fishing in a farm pond, when he hooked a largemouth bass.  The gears in the reel  wouldn't hold the fish, and I managed to pull the fish in hand over hand.  It was a nice fish, and after my brother showed it to everyone in the neighborhood, I had to clean it.  It wasn't so bad except that it was the largest fish I had ever cleaned.  The backbone was as big as my thumb and was hard to cut through.  The big problem was the cat. This creature started by just watching.  Then, she got closer and finally I had to push her out of the way to continue. This was frustrating.  I was continuously having to swat the cat out of the way to finish the job. Maybe I should have given the cat some fish?

I didn't fish any while in the Navy, but when I returned and began attending Clemson University my neighbor introduced me to trout fishing in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  We used canned corn for bait up on the Chauga and Chattooga Rivers.  There is something about "brownie" frying over a campfire with a bubbling stream close by as twilight wanes that is magical.  We also tried to bribe this fellow that worked at the fish hatchery to tell us where they were stocking the trout streams.  We were never successful.

I've fished a little in the Carolina lowcountry.  My friend Henry from church has shown me a new method of bream fishing. Using a fiberglass pole and a cricket for bait it is a method that works  almost every time. One thing that did concern me though; Henry's boat had some loose rivits, so it leaked.  But Henry said it wouldn't fill up with water before we got back to the dock.

There is a special fish that continues to antagonize me.  It is three and one half hours away in a farm pond.  I've seen him in the morning and afternoon.  I know what he looks like.  He is a Micropterus salamoides,  a largemouth bass.  These are the "Jaws" of fresh water.  They will eat anything: worm, minnow, frog, artificial bait. Once I hooked this particular fish in the early morning while the dew was still heavy on the cattails.  He took my worm and ran with it and my old reel sang its song. I put a little pressure on him as though to slow him down.  He jumped, and the water erupted with a splash that could have been heard in the next county.  He let me play the fisherman for a little while as he danced on his tail. And then, I guess he had had enough fun with me, and the hook abruptly came out of his mouth.  This has happened several times but the last time I remember the best. It was twilight. There was a crescent moon appearing in the sky.  The birds of the day were gone, and I could hear the faint screech of a small owl.  A big bullfrog croaked, welcoming the night, and I made one last cast of a purple rubber worm.  The fish hit that worm with all the ferociousness of a charging bull.  I let him run a bit  then tightened the line.  I was thinking this may be the time.  He seemed to dance on his tail across the water, a silver shape in the moonlight.  And then, as if on cue, he seemed to spit out my worm as though it was the wrong flavor and was gone. One day I'll get that fish.  Maybe it deserves a special place on my bucket list. 

I've recently gone saltwater fishing with my neighbor  up the little creeks which feed the Cooper River.

We use mud minnows on spinning rigs.  I've caught a few fish, but my first catch was a stingray. When I hooked him I thought it was one of those "waterhorses" my uncle had talked about. We released him, and he once again became a denizen of the deep.   We moved the boat to a different spot up one of the small creeks that feed the Cooper.  The sun was very bright, and the temperature was about eighty-five degrees with the bluest sky you could imagine.  White clouds billowed along the horizon with thunderheads springing like giant mushrooms into the sky, and the marsh grasses had that jewel-like green  with the water reflecting all that blue of the sky.  The next fish I caught was a ladyfish, and did it ever fight.  It was only about eighteen inches long but ever inch a fighter. Forty-five seconds I will always remember.  After more fishing and catching some other fish  we headed back to the dock.  Along the way I thought of the line in a Garth Brooks song which says, " one of God's greatest blessings is unanswered prayers".  I decided right then and there that ole Garth had never been fishing.

I still don't know why I like fishing.  Or maybe I just like where fish live.

from an old sketchbook

This is a fish story.