Monday, January 27, 2014

Fishing

Roger
I don't know if there is a single person that reads my blog that likes to fish...well, other than some family members.  When the kids were young, we started wading the creeks and fishing with our ultra-light rod & reels...Roger and I would fish and the kids would fish and/or play.  There is not much that is more exciting than have a small mouth hit your lure...they jump out of the water and fight like crazy.  But as far as fight, if a blue gill got as big as a bass, they would be hard to land.  Some of them really fight.
This is Sarah and one of her friends...
But what I am leading to is, I want to go back and visit childhood.   Reading that exerpt from Where the Red Fern Grows the other night made me remember days gone by.  Especially fishing and how much fun we had.

When we were kids and wanted to go fishing, we never even thought about fishing lures.  I don't even remember how old I was before I fished with a Zebco rod and reel.  Over by the creek that ran along the edge of our property, reeds grew.  We called them reeds, anyway.  They were like regular bamboo...only grew 8 or 10 feet tall and grew there wild.

Whenever we wanted to go fishing, either we had one already cut, or if needed would go cut one and bring it home.  We would tie our fishing string to the little end and wind a few yards around the end, and tie a hook  and sinker to the other end.  I don't remember if we used a bobbin or not...I think we did.

Then for bait, we would find some kind of can, put a couple inches of damp dirt in the bottom, and dig our own redworms.  (You night call them earthworms) I don't know why, but sometimes mom threw some water off the back porch...I don't recall why or if it was just something that happened every now and then.  I am almost positive our kitchen sink had a separate drain...rather than draining into our septic tank.  It drained out and went out under the porch and on down to a ditch.  It was buried, of course, but there was an access outside, out far enough not to be under the kitchen porch.  And when mom threw water out the back, it would be by that access...

Well, right around that area, we could usually dig and find worms because of the dampness.  And another favorite place to look was under anything that had been laying in contact with the ground for a while.  We had clay ground, so it did not dry up quick, and usually if we could find a chunk of wood or board laying like that, we could find a few worms under it.

We would find as many as we could in a short amount of time, and then go fishing.  Usually to this little tiny pond...

Those days were such fun...we never caught anything big enough to eat...we didn't care.  It was fun way to spend a summer afternoon...and fishing just sounds like so much fun right now.  I guess in this bitter cold weather, even mowing the yard has some appeal value.



15 comments:

  1. OMG! I LOVE LOVE to fish! Love to fish the creek. Fish for salmon & steelhead in the Snake River. Went to Cabo and caught & released 2 marlin and a boat load of yellow fin tuna! Where was hubby when his dream was to catch a marlin? Yep, sick in the bottom of the boat! LOL! and I got 2! :) Oh yea, I still rub it in!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love fishing. We used to fish a lot at Yellowstone Park lake.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Loved your story about fishing. My DH grew up going fishing with his daddy and it was a way of life with them. For years after we were married, he would take me when he went fishing, I sat and read a book and he fished. What a peaceful and nature filed way of spending your spare time. I enjoyed your story so much. The photos added so much. Happy Week. genie

    ReplyDelete
  4. We used to fish a lot as kids. /any old creek or stream. Some small lakes too. Just an old pole a lead sinker and and a hook and dig us some worms or find pieces of marshmallows or just about anything. I remember one time Cheri caught a --what she said was a catfish--and she said it crawled on the ground and chased her. She wasn't going to fish ever again. Look at her now. haha!!
    I sure like the wonderful stories you tell. So homey and true. MB

    ReplyDelete
  5. no fishing in this household, no interest in it. However your story did make me think of the warmer weather, so thank you for that!!!

    Do you not do ice fishing then?

    ReplyDelete
  6. hubby loves fishing, but not this kind of fishing, he likes wading in the gulf or out in a boat in the gulf and he only keeps fish that are 10 pounds and up. but daddy and my brother fished this way when we were living with out parents. and daddy always caught a "mess" of fish, bream that were the size of his hand. i did not fish or eat the fish... daddy and my brother also used to get in a small row boat and go arond the edges in the reeds and put out lines with hooks and worms. the next morning or late that night they went around and pulled out the fish and added worms and dropped them again. daddy had a worm bed made from old boards and he threw scraps and water in it and there were big old fat worms to fish with

    ReplyDelete
  7. My husband likes to fish, Rose. I like to take photos. ;))

    ReplyDelete
  8. I like your trip back to former times and fishing. I remember a cock floating on a muddy stream in Kansas. No wonder I didn't like catfish with their 10,000 bones and questionable taste! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. You have such wonderful childhood memories! My family used to fish quite a bit at a local lake when I was a kid. It was always fun.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I enjoy sunny summer childhood memories. We went camping a lot and although there was no fishing involved. My dad took me for walks in the forest, which I loved.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I always feel sorry for the fish LOL They are ice fishing on the lake where I live....as I type. I enjoyed your reminiscing. it does not take big bucks to fish....just the desire.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I enjoyed this, Rose. I never fished...maybe because daddy and my older brother never fished. Thanks for sharing these photos, too.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I love your memories Rose and my husband loves to fish and I do too on occasion.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I have to say that I never liked fishing that much. We went fairly often as kids when dad wanted to go fish. I was the one that wandered around the shore looking at the rocks and playing in the water and just inspecting things around me. We lived in Indy then and Dad liked to go to some stripper pits around Brazil, Indiana? I just remember it was a long drive. Sometimes on our Ohio visits we went fishing at the farm, or Dad loved to fish for perch in Lake Erie and the Huron River. That is why they moved back up to Ohio after we were all grown and married. We went fishing on the lake with Dad after we were married and took our vacations there every summer. I sort of enjoyed that because we actually caught something....plus I liked the boat ride. It's the endless time just holding a rod with nothing happening that always bored me.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting my blog...I hope you like it enough to take the time to comment. I enjoy comments so much, and always try to make a return visit.