Fishing

I love to fish and did it often in the Greenbrier River which runs near my childhood home, in Talcott, West Virginia. Fishing can be a simple process, armed with an old fishing rod without a reel, but with a twig taped to the top of the pole as a crossbar with rainbow-colored fishing line wrapped around it. Attached to the end of the line is a hook, about four inches above that is a sinker and sometimes about four inches above that is a bobber. With a container of night crawlers; some extra line, an old leather glove and some extra hooks in a small tin box, I’m ready to go.

Reaching the river bank is tricky. Walking down the hill from my childhood home, I cross the main road (Rt. 3 E, watching for traffic), cross the double railroad tracks, walk a short distance down the auxiliary road (commonly called ‘the backroad’), down a well-worn path through a vacant lot, and then stepping down a shale and boulder hillside to the river bank using ‘steps’ cut by countless feet before me. Fishing is best done early in the morning or late in the evening, since this is also the community swimming hole.

Finding a good place to sit on the shale riverbank, depending on what area you might want to fish – there are areas with deep holes and others where the water never gets above your waist. Once seated, I bait my hook, throw the line into the water and wait. If I attach a bobber, it will show when a fish bites, otherwise I lay the pole at my side and hold the line with my bare toes to feel a slight tug of a fish biting, these.

Now I can listen to the music of Nature. Occasionally, a fish will jump out of the water after a low flying bug. The slight rubble of rapids upriver. A cool breeze blows across the water creating ripples that ‘bounce’ off the rocky shore and ‘bounce’ back in several directions. Above my head a wind ‘kicked’ up by a passing freight train ripples through the tree line, the rumble of the wheels is like a song with the occasional flat wheel singing out of tune, these are music to my ears!. Down river, during my childhood, there was an old steel and wooden bridge, the sound of people driving over the loose boards was both soothing and amusing – locals drove fast, tourists drove slowly, changing the ‘song’ the boards ‘sang’. It was later replaced with a concrete bridge. Nature and the train passing are an important part of the fishing experience.

When I feel a bite on my fishing line, I tug it gently and pull it in. Using the old leather glove to protect my hand from the fish’s back ridge, I work the hook out of its mouth. I make a loop of some of my extra fishing line, threading it through the gills and mouth of the fish, then looping the line over a rock near the water, the fish stay alive and cool until I’m ready to go. The most common fish in our area is in the Perch family, a Sun Perch, locally called ‘Red Eyes’, because they have red eyes that change to blue when they die. Another creature to watch out for are baby snapping turtles, locally known as 'Skill Pots' for some reason, they will steal you bait if you’re not careful.

When I’m ready to go, I wrap the fishing line around my pole, throwing what bait is left into the water, grab my ‘string’ of fish and climb back up to the house. I’ll clean the fish after their eyes change (that way they can’t watch as I’m cleaning them =)), cook some for dinner and save the rest.

The End.