As we grew older and learned to fish by ourselves we liked to go fishing at the log crossing. There were big white granite rocks along the bank that made good places to stand and sit. Thick, green grass grew between the rocks and the edge of the water. One huge old boulder stuck up right in the middle of the creek, causing the stream to divide and flow around it. If we were careful, we could stretch our legs way out and step on that boulder, then jump over to the other side of the creek without getting our feet wet, usually. Beyond that boulder the creek dropped down into a nice, deep fishing hole. On the other side of the hole a big old log lay across the creek. It was wedged between boulders on one side and a tree on the other. If we were brave, or someone held our hand, we could cross the creek on the bridge it made.
Dad showed us how to bait our hooks with worms we had dug in grandpa’s garden. Those worms were wiggly, and it was hard to push them onto the hook. Dad told us it didn’t hurt the worms, but it was till gross.
We would drop the worm into the clear water of the creek and watch to see if any of the fish swimming down there swallowed it. It was always disappointing to watch a fish open his mouth and nibble on the worm hanging off our hook, but not swallow the hook as well. Then we had to pull our line out of the water and put a new worm on it. Soon we learned to double the worm over, pushing it onto the hook in two places so it didn’t hang off. Then the fish had to swallow the whole thing.
It took awhile before I could bait my own hook without making Dad do it for me. I hated the feeling of the squirmy worm in my fingers, but worse I hated piercing the poor thing with the hook. Yuck! When I finally got used to baiting my hook fishing was easier.
One day I threw my hook out into the middle of the stream and watched as the hook and worm sank below the clear surface of the water. Fish swam around in the deep hole, some little and some big. They always seemed to stop at my worm, sometimes even to smell it, but then they would swim on. Then suddenly I felt my pole jerk! I gasped in surprise as I saw the line wiggling around above the water and I felt the pull of a fish on the end of the string.
“I’ve got one! I’ve got one!” I yelled with excitement while I held onto my pole, not knowing what to do next. Dad came over and helped me reel in the fish. It exploded from the water, spinning and flipping every which way, splashing all over. Dad reached out and grabbed the line, pulling the fish over to the bank, where it landed in the grass, still flopping.
“Now you have to hit it on a rock to kill it,” Dad said. I looked at him in surprise. No one had told me I had to kill the silly fish. I hadn’t ever thought about that part before. I guess I just assumed it would be dead when I pulled it out of the creek. I tried to grab hold of the slimy, black body flipping around in the grass, but it was hard to grasp without it slipping through my fingers.
“It sure is a big one,” Dad proclaimed proudly, as he helped me get my hands around the fish.
“Now, hold him tight and hit his head against this big rock,” he instructed. I closed my eyes and flopped the fish against the rock.
“You have to hit it harder than that,” Phillip laughed as he watched. Even though he was two years younger than me, Phillip had been catching his own fish for a long time, and he knew exactly what to do.
I held onto the fish tighter, then slammed it into the rock. The fish stopped wiggling in my hands, so Dad took it from me and strung it on the stick he had fixed to hold the fish in the water until we were ready to go home.
“Wow! Gale! You caught your first fish!” Dad praised. “And just look how big it is! You caught the biggest one today!”
My heart swelled with pride as I reached for my pole and baited it with a new worm. Catching fish was exciting, and knowing I had caught the biggest fish of the day made me feel wonderful, but I didn’t like having to kill the poor thing by hitting it against a rock. That, and the fact that I really didn’t like eating fish anyway kept me from becoming a great fisherman like my brothers and little sister, Linda.
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