My first fishing memory goes back to a dark night when I was four years of age. I was in a small boat rocking gently in the waves of Lake Erie with my father. My aunt and uncle owned a cottage at the lake’s edge and that night my dad packed up his fishing tackle, a lantern, and his only daughter to do a bit of night fishing. The lantern on the boat’s floor between us cast a golden glow as I pulled small spotted perch, one right after another, up from the depths and into the boat. My dad carefully removed the hook from the mouth of each perch and let me look at the glistening fish before returning them to the water, “So they can grow bigger.” Without realizing it, that night he taught me an early lesson of catch-and-release fishing, but I confess, we didn’t always throw the bigger ones back in!
A few years later we moved to south Florida where I continued to fish, bringing home grouper, bluefish, and red snapper from the ocean and large-mouth bass from the Everglades. At an early age, I learned the fine art of cleaning, fileting, breading, and frying the meat to sizzling perfection. Many was the time we caught fish, built a fire on the shore and roasted the meat on a stick over the hot coals. The skin crisped up while the white meat inside stayed moist and tender without any breading!
It seems I always had a rod and reel at my disposal, as well as the proverbial Florida cane pole; a long piece of flexible bamboo with fishing line attached to the end that could be wrapped around the pole when not in use. One did not cast this type of fishing apparatus; you just unrolled the line with the hook at the end, added a few split-shot sinkers to take the bait to the bottom and a red and white bobber to alert you if you had a bite. Florida canals, ponds, and rock pits are very deep within a few feet of shoreline so the cane poles did well without having to cast out.
In my late twenties I became enamored with fly fishing, which has continued to be my favorite way of fishing. The whip-like action of the long flexible rod had to be practiced in order to put the bait where you wanted it to go. While learning, I spent many a morning trying to untangle my line from overhead branches and bushes near the shoreline, which was a challenge standing up in a canoe. But what a thrill when you hooked a big one and had to hand-pull the line in, hopefully faster than the fish could wiggle off the hook. With practice, I got better and even started tying my own flies from chicken feathers I scrounged from our neighbor’s flock.
Fishing the Florida Everglades was not only a great place to bring in lunker bass, but was a delight for the eyes as well. I remember loading up a johnboat before dawn and gliding down the main canal, heading for various interior ponds that looked like good fishing holes. As the morning sun brilliantly rose over the flat horizon, thousands of water lilies opened their petals after a night’s rest and great white herons walked among them, searching for breakfast.
The Everglades is a moving sea of grass, with small hammocks of peat moss where countless varieties of animals make their home. Alligators abound and you learn to keep one eye on your rod and the other on any floating “logs” that quietly surface near the boat. Those early morning hours were the best time to catch the big ones. In a few hours we’d be heading home with maybe three largemouth bass in the cooler. Why three? With each one weighing between ten and thirteen pounds, it was more than enough for several suppers and plenty to leave behind for another day’s catch.
When I moved to the community of Love, I found out about trout fishing. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Fish and Game Commission stocked the creeks and rivers near our home and on the first Saturday in April trout season officially opened at daybreak. Over on the North Fork of the Tye River, this event was celebrated on Friday night before opening day and it had a small carnival atmosphere. People who lived or had camps along the river at White Rock fixed vast batches of food for visitors and anyone who owned a musical instrument put it to good use at the various camps. I remember walking up and down the road to the different camps and staying awhile to enjoy the food, the music, and mostly the fellowship of the mountain people. I always left at a reasonable hour but those spending the night continued to party until the break of dawn and then walked down to the river to fish away the early morning hours.
In the early 1990s all the excitement of opening day ended when it was decided to continually stock trout from each autumn through the following spring. Without the anticipation of the event, things kind of fell flat and it wasn’t the same. But trout fishing is still an ongoing sport, and over the years I’ve caught my fair share of rainbow, brook, and brown trout in Back Creek, Tye River, Sherando Lake and stocked private ponds. However, my favorite kind is native trout which are smaller than the stocked variety but by far the tastiest. The telltale orange coloring along the underside of the fish shows their diets included plenty of crawdads. I have fished for natives in the creek at Crabtree Meadows and have caught my limit of six at Mill Creek Reservoir in Sherando, if you don’t mind the long walk in and out of the National Forest.
All in all, I have my dad to thank for all the fishing memories I carry in my heart. When he passed away in 1990, my mother asked what I wanted of his. I walked to the utility room and found the battered tackle box with his yellow fishing knife and old lures inside and brought it back to Virginia as a keepsake. I have it still…along with the memory of a father who took time to teach his only daughter a most enjoyable sport.
