Fishing

Fishing was a big part of our life growing up in Ekalaka and Carter County. I have told some of my fishing stories before, but I don't think that I have ever written a story about fishing, so, here goes.

Grandma and Grandpa Coons kept a good supply of fishing stuff on the porch of their wonderful home. When us kids visited, we helped ourselves to willow poles and various other fishing supplies. We usually went fishing in Box Elder Creek, though, sometimes, we went in the reservoir by their house, which we referred to as the dam. We had such a good time at that dam. Sometimes we would wallow in the mud of the canal just above the dam, get all muddy, and then go jump in the reservoir to clean off.

Sometimes we went frog gigging in the dam or in the creek. One time I speared a frog on the gig, but he got away. The next year I caught him again, identified by the scars on his back. We had a real good time with frogs. One of my favorite tricks was to work a hollow piece of grass up the frog’s rear end and then carefully blow him up. After putting him back in the water, he could swim but he couldn't dive. He would eventually lose enough air to dive and get away. Terrible, I know. Grandpa probably taught me that.

He also taught me to get a piece of thread and, after catching one of those great big horse flies, tie it carefully around its torso and let it fly around on the leash. After a while it would either get away or die. Another terrible thing but that was what we did before television.

Anyway, one time when we, the Christiansen cousins and us Lavells, were out skating on the iced over dam, we discovered lots of fish under the surface. I first realized this when I saw, through a hole in the ice, a fish swim below me. Without thinking, I reached down and scooped it out and onto the bank. We ran and got the adults and they fashioned seines out of gunny sacks and caught something like 187 fish. Only a few were big enough to eat, but they took the others to reservoirs on the ranch. The weekend culminated with Grandpa trying to walk out to a hole in the ice and feed the fish chicken guts. He fell through and all of us, including him, got a good laugh.

I will tell you three incidents of our fishing in Box Elder. One time I was rigging set lines when something took a line. I pulled it in and found a four-pound channel cat. We really enjoyed eating that.

Another time, several of us kids, Bertha included, I think, were fishing in a hole just under where the road went over to Ernie Taylor's place. We heard a car coming. It stopped and a man said, "Hey, what are you kids doing?"

Someone replied, "We're fishing."

He identified himself as the game warden and asked, "Do you have a fishing license?"

"No, we're just kids."

"Oh, privileged characters, huh. Did you catch anything?"

A quavering voice said, "Just one."

He declined to take the one fish we had because he didn't want to climb down there. After he left, we went crying home and Grandpa just laughed and laughed. He said that was only Milo Kennedy, who was a neighbor at the time. We didn't think it was funny.

The last incident I will tell you about was when we were visiting during Easter vacation or maybe even later. I went fishing with my little sister, Marti. There was literally still ice in the water. I stuck my pole in the sand and went up on the bank to catch some grasshoppers for bait. Watching my bobber, it started violently going up and down. The fish pulled the pole out of the sand and into the middle of the hole. I tried everything to get ahold of that pole without any luck, all the while it was bobbing up and down. This had to be a great fish, so, nothing to do but ask Marti not to watch, strip down to my shorts and swim out and get it. I swam out into the icy water, pulled the pole back in and there was a two-inch catfish on the line. What we won't do for a fish.

Well, anyway, there is my fishing story. I probably have told some of these fishing stories before, but I guess that is what old men do: tell stories over and over.