FISH TALESOnes That Got Away
by Wendel Potter
June 13, 2005
I haven't been fishing in quite some time. And no, it's not because I'm too cheap to buy a license. Although, I've always had a bit of a problem with the notion of paying a government agency good money so I can pull God's creatures out of God's own waters. After all, we are "one nation under God." Aren't we? Maybe I'd better check the news again to make sure.
The real reason for my absence at the fishing holes of America over the past many years is that I've sort of lost touch with the lay of the land - and the river. For advice on good fishing spots, I'd never rely on people I know who go fishing. Most of them are boat fishermen with sophisticated equipment and their favorite spots might be a couple of hundred feet from shore. That's not for me.
Nor do I like to fish where everyone and their dog might show up. I always enjoyed a quiet wooded spot along still backwaters where the footprint of man hadn't made its impression in some time. Maybe I'll show up on the news some evening: "Game warden arrests suspected serial fisherman; neighbors remember suspect as 'kind of a loner' and 'too cheap to buy a fishing license.'"
Still waters - and memories - run deep. When I was old enough to hold a fishing pole - a fiberglass rod with an open-faced Ocean City reel - I plopped down on the rocks under the Rock Island railroad trestle that crossed over Five Island Lake back in my hometown in Iowa. My dad showed me the art of casting. Then I showed him the art of freeing the hook from the bushes behind us. We fished for bullhead, those wriggling and whiskered yellow-and-black fighters that were pretty good to eat, but even more fun to catch.
After moving out here to Nebraska, I went fishing a lot the first couple of summers with our retired neighbor, Ed. We fished either from his boat on the waters of his brother's sandpit or from the shore. Ed showed me a few things about fishing, and I never had to show him how to get his hook out of the bushes.
When I was in seventh grade, my friends and I scoped out the Loup River east of Fullerton and discovered what proved to be a great catfish hole. We'd get up at daybreak and ride our bicycles down what we called "the dump road." The road, if you followed it to the south, led to the city landfill. If you continued on straight, it became a path that led to a padlocked gate -- the no-entrance entrance to a farmer's cow pasture.
Since we didn't have a key to the lock and didn't know the farmer well enough to ask him for permission anyway, we lifted our bikes and our rods and tackle over the fence. Then we rode across the pasture amongst the grazing cattle and on over to the edge of the river. There was a felled and rotted tree that was half in the water and half on land.
The tree was enough to slow the flow of the river at that point to a mild crawl.
We sat down on the tree trunk and molded balls of Catfish Charlie - what some call stink bait - around our hooks, then dropped our lines directly beneath us. It wouldn't be long before the red-and-white bobbers would disappear and we'd feel that familiar tug on our lines. As I recall, we didn't have to play with those catfish very long. With an artful snap of the wrist, we'd set the hooks and would soon be reeling them in.
I especially remember the ones that got away.
It was our routine to put our catch on a stringer. The stringer was a nylon cord with a serrated, knife-like point on one end and a metal ring crimped on the other. The serrated end went inside the fish's gill and out through its mouth, then through the ring. You could string several fish together this way, then put them in shallow water and drive the pointed end into the ground to secure the stringer.
One morning, my friend Danny and I had fished for three or four hours and had hauled in several nice pan-sized catfish, which were swimming in the water below us, grouped together on my stringer. We were making plans to head home when Danny caught another fish. I reached over and pulled the end of the stringer out of the ground, but it somehow slipped out of my grasp. We both helplessly watched our morning's entire catch snatch its moment of freedom, swish its tails in unison and swim off into deeper water all strung together and kicking like the Rockettes.
I don't think Danny ever went fishing with me again. As a matter of fact, I fished alone a lot after that. But that's the way I like it.
There's nothing like fishing in solitude. Just me, an old reliable rod and reel, a hook, a bobber and some bait. One fisherman, under God.
I wouldn't mind revisiting that old fishing hole again. But I still don't know who owns that land. And I'm getting too old to lift my bicycle over the fence.
Copyright 2005 Wendel Potter
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