Reeling In Time with Fish Tales. Brian E. Smith
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your fishing string with each cast. Feel the end of the line with your fingers. Do you feel how rough it feels between your fingers?”
“Yes, sir” and I nodded.
“Check your line every now and then, and when it feels rough, cut out the bad line and re-tie with fresh smooth line.” He tied on another sinker, showing me a simple overhand knot, and gave me two extra sinkers to put in my pocket along with his pocketknife.
By the time we finally got to the lake, I was more than ready to cast anything other than that sinker, such as a lure, bait, or whatever, all the way across the lake, just to impress Dad.
Once the fishing rods were out of the car, Dad pulled out a knapsack that had our lunch, drinks, a loaf of stale, white bread, and some other stuff. The bait came next. The cricket tube contained a few dozen crickets crawling from one end to the other. The worm bucket was a three-pound coffee can half-filled with garden soil and crumbled leaves with a couple of handfuls of fat earthworms mixed in. Finally, a good-sized Plano tackle box.
The earthworms we dug up from our garden. Dad told me the best worms were under the weed patches, so be sure to dig there. It took only ten turns of the shovel to produce several dozen wiggle-worms. It was cool to dig up the worms the day before we went fishing, but what was really neat was Dad’s worm bucket.
He ran both ends of the coffee can through a can opener to form a metal tube. He put a plastic lid at each end to close both ends. Each lid he punched with plenty of holes using a nail. Toward one open end of the can, he punched two holes across from each other using an ice pick and a Phillips head screwdriver, to open up the hole. Afterwards, he strung a section of small rope through from the outside in and tied an overhand knot on the inside bitter ends to form a simple rope handle.
“Don’t swing the bucket around, son, the bottom lid will fall out,” he cautioned.
“Dad, why did you knock out both ends of the coffee can and not just the top?”
“Do worms dig up or dig down?” Dad asked.
“Down, right?”
“You’re right, Champ, but in this magic can the worms will always crawl to the top on one side or the other.” He didn’t fool me with the magic can bit, but Dad always had a reason for doing things.
“Dad, tell me why you told me the best worms are found underneath the garden weeds?”
He smiled and said, “There is more than one way to weed a garden.”
Four days before going fishing, Dad took me out to the garden; he was toting two large Russet potatoes. He took his pocketknife and cut both potatoes into thin slices, giving me a handful of slices, saying, “Put a slice or two under every old board, brick, block, garbage can, garbage can lid, and especially under the sheets of plastic we used to cover the tomatoes.”
Dad’s gone nuts having me hide potato slices like Easter eggs, but I did as told. This was so strange I was afraid to ask. Once I hid the potato slices, we walked away, no words about it. I was really confused.
The day before we went fishing, after we dug the worms, we stood in the garden.
“This is a cricket tube, son.” It was a cylinder made of hardware cloth, about twelve inches long and four inches in diameter. One end tapered to a half-inch funnel hole with a cork in the end. To keep from dropping and losing the cork, it had a knotted string stapled on the end loosely tied back to the tube. The other end of the tube was blunt. Dad showed me that it had a sleeved cap to secure that end made of the same hardware cloth as the tube.
“Is that some kind of cricket trap, Dad?”
“No, this is where you put them after you catch them.”
“Catch ’em? I don’t see any to catch”
“Look under that garbage can lid where you put the tater slices a few days ago.” I flipped the lid over and black and brown popcorn started hopping up off the ground. I took two quick steps backwards and heard Dad and Mom laugh.
“Mom?”
She had snuck in behind us and said, “Grab ’em, Babe, grab ’em.” I jumped in like a chicken on a June bug. I swatted at one, missing. Then one hopped on me; I grabbed myself and it hopped off. Finally, I slapped one to the ground.
“I got one, Dad!” I picked up my hand to find cricket goop. The rest got away. I turned to Dad with a forlorn look.
“Champ, you got to be ready, sitting on go when you flip the lid. In addition, you have to pick a target. In other words, don’t get distracted by a whole bunch of jumping crickets, pick out one and go for it, but do it gently. Remember, you’re a giant compared to tiny crickets. Do that once more; remember you only have two hands, so most of the crickets will escape to go fishing another day. I’ll help also so we’ll have plenty of crickets to fish with.”
“What about Mom, she can help, right?”
Dad smiled, “I don’t think so, Champ.”
The crickets were fun to catch. Mom seemed to have the most fun just watching us cricket-cowboys. The crickets hopped. We hopped. I paid attention to what Dad said. I was getting good at catching two crickets each flip-over. In a competitive spirit, I tried to match Dad in the number I caught, but it became obvious that he had done this a time or two before. In half an hour we flipped over everything I’d hid a potato slice under. We had a good number of crickets in our tube.
“Champ, did you notice the little notches missing from the edges of the tater slices?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Crickets like to eat potatoes and we used potatoes as bait. I’m not as crazy as you thought, am I?” He had read my mind!
Dad slid the cricket cage in the top of the knapsack before slinging it across one shoulder. As he bent over to get the tackle box, I grabbed both fishing rods and the worm bucket.
“Which way, Dad?” He struck out walking toward the point where the birds were. When we were still a good way off, some of the gulls began to call and screech. The ones lying on the ground got up. Strangely, some of the ones on top of the gazebo commenced to paint. When we were within a stone’s throw, the entire flock flew off. By the sound, they didn’t like us breaking up their party.
I started running. “Champ! Don’t….” The bottom of the worm bucket fell out. “You can’t run with the worm bucket.”
“I know, Dad, I forgot.” We scooped up the worms and soil, putting the bucket back whole.
On the point where the gulls were, Dad set up camp on the picnic table, under the gazebo. He took the worm bucket from me and set it on the table, doing the same thing with the fishing rods. Next, he pulled the cricket cage from the knapsack setting it beside the worm bucket. The loaf of stale white bread, he put at the other end of the table over the top of a few sheets of old newspaper he brought. The next items were two cans of whole yellow corn and a hand turn can opener.
“I hope that’s not our lunch, Dad.”
“Just fish food, Champ, fish food.” I was watching intently, because Dad had an agenda of some sort.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing the two cans of corn and the can opener and moving to the end of the table with the bread. He spread three sheets of newspaper out to form an eighteen by twenty-four-inch rectangle. He set the cans of corn on the windward corners to keep the slight breeze from blowing the papers. He took the top eight slices of bread, including the heel, and put them in the middle of the paper.
“Son, get up on the table and help me do this.” I did as he asked.
“When are we going to fish, Dad?”
“Give me five minutes; we’re making a fish-call! Here’s what to do…” He took a slice of bread between both hands and began rubbing his hands back and forth. Mini-crumbs rained down like snow. “Rub it lightly so you won’t get big clumps,” he warned.