Cousins Fishing Day
It was to be a great day of fishing for two
cousins, one father, and a grandfather. One boy lived in the city and one in a
country town. They had made plans (or the parents did), and the boys were going
to spend the day fishing together. Their Grandpa (from a small country town)
and the father, of the boy from the city were making their first outing
together.
The trip had started early in the morning.
It seemed, Wally thought they were making a lot of unnecessary preparation before leaving. He had
expected to just jump into the old truck and take off for the mountains, and
for sure be fishing by 8:00 or 9:00 AM.
However, it did not work out that way
because we were now working on Country Time, and it works a little different
that City Time. County time seems to have no schedule. You just do things as
they come and don’t worry about the time. (Of course sometimes that is not good
because the so called schedule happens to be 4:00 AM! –but that is another blog
for another day.)
The first thing we seemed to HAVE TO do for
this trip was fix a big lunch and find a gallon jug for water. Then check to
make sure the fishing gear was in the truck. I guess that is where they kept it
stored, unless they were using the truck for some other reason? Wally had his
stuff all checked out and ready to go, in fact he had checked it out a couple
of times before they had left the city. Grandpa Neldon was not too concerned
about his stuff. He said that he was sure it was all in the truck, but he would
check it before we left.
Of course the boys, Steve and Randy, did not
do much with getting ready. They mostly ran around the yard, played on the
grass and climbed in and out of the truck, like I suppose most kids do. They
were going to get to ride to the mountains in the back of the truck, and they
could not wait to get going. After Wally had told them, six or eight times, to
quit climbing in and out of the truck—I guess Neldon, coming out of the house
with a BIG lunch (which Wally had not even thought about) was the signal that it
was time to go.
Wally was a little nervous about putting his
tackle box and pole in the back of the truck, as he thought the boys might step
on it and break it , however Neldon said to just toss it the back by the tail
gate. He kind of smiled and said,”mine has survived a LOT of trips riding there
and it is still like new, Ha Ha.”
We were finally loaded and ready to go.
Neldon asked Wally what he had in that big tackle box? Wally told him he had some spinners, flies,
plugs, salmon eggs, sinkers, extra line and all the stuff you need to fish
with. Neldon said, “You got any worms?” Wally told him no, that he did not
usually use them so he had not bought any.” Neldon told him the extra line
would be good, but he was not sure about the other stuff. He then also
explained to Wally about worms in the country.
He told him you do not buy worms in the country. You go out the night
before and catch them. Then if you do not use them all, when you get home you either
put them in your worm corral or back on the lawn where they wait for the next
trip. However Neldon told him he was sure he had enough worms for all of us.
Well at 10:00 AM we were speeding, about 25
miles per hour (country time) up the canyon to our designated fishing stream.
It was not too far from town, but far enough to make us realize we were in a
beautiful spot in the mountains.
As soon as the truck stopped Wally jumped
out and was putting up his pole. He also was wondering if that little stream
(that he could easily jump across) really was where we going to spend the day
fishing.
Wally had his pole all set up and was going
to get Steve and Randy’s and it dawned on him that Neldon was still sitting in
the truck. Of course Wally was “champing at the bit” to get to the steam and
fill his creel with fish. He looked over toward the truck and Neldon had not
got out of the seat yet. WHAT was going on? Neldon said,”I’ll take care of the boy’s
poles, you go ahead and take you some worms and go and I will get the boys set
up.”
Well Wally was anxious to get fishing so he said
he would go for a few minutes and then be back to help with the boys. He walked
down to the little stream and found a cut-bank with a pretty good sized hole in
front of it and decided that was a good place to start. He decided to start
with salmon eggs.
He started his great adventure for the day
and fished for about an hour, and he knew there were fish in the hole because
he could see them, however he did not catch any and in fact never even got a
bite.
He decided he better go back and help Neldon
with the boys. It was not very far and when he got there Randy & Steve were
sitting on the bank of the stream by a big hole, holding their poles and
anxiously awaiting for a fish to bite. Neldon had not put his pole together yet
and Wally asked him why? He explained
that he had spent most of the time untangling one line or the other for the
boys. Wally offered to watch the boys if he wanted to set his pole up. However
he said no as he was in no hurry, as he could come up here any day he wanted.
He told Wally to go ahead and fish and he would take care of the boys for a
while.
Of course that was OK with Wally. As he
turned to leave Neldon said, “Did you use any of those worms” and Wally said no
he was using salmon eggs. Neldon told him he should use some worms, because he
doubted if the fish up here even knew what a salmon egg was. Wally had only
taken a couple of steps and Neldon yelled, “You know if you can see the fish
under those cut banks they can also see you- just sayin!” I wondered if the
little smile was just for me or if a lot of people had benefitted from it once
in a while?
Well it was a beautiful day in the
mountains, but after about two hours the boys had done all the fishing they
wanted to and Neldon had never put up his pole. He said he had been too busy keeping
the boys lines untangled and getting them unhooked out of the bushes.
About mid-afternoon I guess EVERYONE had
about all the fishing they wanted. We found an old dilapidated table at the end
of a pasture and ate our lunch. The boys finished lunch in a few bites with a
drink of water and were then off to climb the mountains and throw rocks in the
stream.
When they got tired of that they got a quilt
out of the truck and lay it on the ground and lay down and looked for animals
and things in the white clouds against the blue sky. It was amazing to me what
they imagined they saw in those cloud formations.
Neldon and Wally set at the old table and
talked, finished lunch and cleaned up. We decided that it was not to important
that we not only did not catch any fish, we did not even getting a real bite. I
found the reason Neldon was un-tangleing lines so often was because every time
he would get it back in the water the other boy would get a “stick or bottom
bite” and would jerk the line in and Neldon would patiently set it up again.
Wally also learned a few things that day
that have been reinforced over the years as he has gotten older. (1) It is a
lot more important to be patient with a boy than it is for you to catch a fish.
(2) A boy in the mountains needs to keep busy, to use up some of his pent up energy,
even if Dad has to give up some of his time to see it happens. (3) Grandpa’s
(from country towns or city’s) know a lot more than you think they do, but most
of them are quite closed mouth about things UNLESS you ask them how they feel
about something, or ask for advice. And remember if you do that the answer
could go on for hours? (4) Just because a grandpa or great grandpa just sits
and makes no comments does not mean he is not enjoying himself. He is probably
smiling inside and remembering what it was like to be young?
So that winds up my Cousin Fishing Day blog
and I remember that day like it was a short time ago, even though it was over
50 years ago. (Why can’t I remember where I put my car keys yesterday?)
I hope that I can also remember that in the
long run, People are much more important than things.
W.R.
Baldwin (1 August 2016)
This
is a true story—just a little bit enhanced?
