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Copyright 1999-2005
No reproduction of any kind.
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Anglers Sharing Stories
From Spring 1996 Kansas Angler
Reader shares tale of catching
fish on some unconventional baits
By Sue Tigard
Last year on Mother's Day I received a gift I had
wanted for three years. It was a new rod and reel with 15-pound
test line. I could not wait to try it out.
You see, I did not plan to love fishing. I had
no intention of putting anything on a hook and waiting for hours
to catch a slimy thing with more bones than meat.
Three years ago we acquired a place on the Walnut
River. My husband, Alan, was going to go exploring. My daughters,
Michelle and Dyan, were in our trailer watching TV. I had nothing
to do. Alan suggested I fish. "Don't you have to have a
worm or something?" I said. I looked in the refrigerator
and found some ham we had saved from sandwiches. "This might
work. What do fish know!"
I headed down to the river. It was 14 feet straight
down, or a quarter of a mile by the road. I chose the road. I
found a spot in front of the trailer on a rock bar. I wrapped
the ham around the hook and let the line out a little into the
water. I did not want to get too deep for fear the hook might
snag on something. If it did, I would have to cut the line, because
I don't like to go in the water where I can't see the bottom.
Not being prepared, I would just have to walk back to the trailer
for another hook. This was before I believed in tackle boxes.
I waited a short time when the hook caught on something, or something
caught on the hook. "Ok, now what do I do?" I knew
enough to reel in the line, but then what. I had not planned
on catching a fish. "Maybe it will just go away. Maybe I
can wait until Alan comes home to deal with it."
I yelled to my daughters, "I think I caught
a fish! What should I do?"
"Pull it in."
Since my line was only about five feet out, I did
not have to work too hard to bring it in. There was a big flathead
on the other end. It just kind of slid up onto the bank and laid
there.
I yelled to my daughters to bring me something.
Having as much knowledge about fishing as I did, they brought
me a cardboard box.
We were quite a sight walking up the road. I was
carrying the box with the fish in it and one of the girls had
the pole. Not knowing how to take the hook out, the line remained
attached to the hook, which was still in the fish!
The girls were very worried about the fish dying,
so we cleaned out a big cooler, filled it with water, and put
the fish, still on the line, inside.
When Alan got back, I proudly showed him my catch.
He showed me how to clean it so I would not get a lot of bones.
"I can do that," I thought. "It's a lot like dissecting,
and I had taught biology!"
Well, we fried it up, ate it up, and from that
time on, I was hooked.
The next time we went fishing, I took a leftover
hamburger in foil as bait. I figured if the ham worked, why not
hamburger! I put a small piece on the hook very carefully and
cast it out. Well, the hamburger came off in mid air, the hook
got caught on the bottom, and our dog, who had followed me down
to the river, ate the rest of the hamburger from the foil. Not
wanting to give up, I pulled on the line until the snag came
loose, then proceeded to fashion a small fish-like shape out
of foil. I stuck that on my hook and cast it out. Within a minute
I had caught a fish. Just dumb luck, I guess.
A few weeks later we again had time to go to the
river and fish. I was a bit more prepared with a dozen guaranteed
worms. At least that's what a bait man told me. Our daughters
had brought friends along, and I was going to treat them to a
fish dinner. I prepared to catch fish and tried for three hours
before giving up and fixing hot dogs. The next day I was up early
fishing. I caught two good-sized catfish and held them up for
the family to see at the trailer. Dyan was so impressed that
pretty soon she and her friend went down to look at the fish
up close. I had them on a stringer and it was secured, I thought,
by a big rock. I continued to fish and turned around long enough
to see the two fish still attached to the stringer swimming away!
For lunch that day we again had hot dogs.
We had been bragging to our friends Leslie and
Delbert about our river spot with "great fishing",
so we invited them to come along. I soon found out that Leslie
was just as crazy about fishing as I had become. We fished for
two days and caught two small fish, which we threw back, hoping
they would take pity on us and tell the bigger fish to swim our
way. It must have worked. The next day we started catching fish
at eight in the morning and finished at four in the afternoon,
with twenty good fish. We were worn out. Every time I would cast,
I would catch a fish. Every time Leslie would cast, she would
catch a fish. We were pretty busy taking hooks out, one of us
with pliers on the fish's lip, and one with pliers removing the
hook.
After fishing from the rock bar, Leslie and I decided
to try our hand at fishing from a boat. Our husbands said we
could use the boat if we carried it to the river by ourselves.
So we headed to the river, with rods, tackle boxes, pillows for
the hard boat seats, life jackets, bait, a net, pop, munchies
and romance novels!
We carried the boat to the river and paddled up
river, then tied off to a tree branch. We kept telling ourselves
that today was our day to catch the Big One. After many nibbles
and no commitments, it finally happened! I had a Big One on my
line. I carefully reeled in the fish to get it close to the boat
when the line broke.
We realized our problem too late. I was on the
downstream end of the boat with the rod, and Leslie was upstream
with the net. Next time we'll have a new strategy - the downstream
person gets the net and the upstream person gets the pole! We'll
both take credit for the catch.
Because of our love of fishing Leslie and I have
gotten ourselves in some pretty unusual circumstances. Over Christmas
vacation we took a day away from our families to go fishing.
The river was way up so we decided to go to a small pond on the
back of the property our trailer was on. We had to enter from
another road that we had not tried before. We ended up getting
stuck in the mud in my husband's truck!. By the time we got on
our way we had a dirty truck, no fish, and no time left to go
fishing. I did manage to get the truck washed before Alan saw
it. He thought we were being nice since he took care of the kids
all day!
Another time we told our husbands we were going
on a women's retreat. We retreated, alright. Right to the river
to fish!
If anyone is ever looking for me, just look at
the river. Most likely I'll be fishing.
Back To Anglers Sharing
Stories
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