Fishing is one of my favorite sports.  I remember going fishing with the whole family when I was about 6 or 7 years old.  The family consisted of my dad, mother, younger brother, baby sister, granddaddy and myself.  This one particular fishing trip was a very memorable one for me. We were fishing just below a bridge with high sides of steel and about 20 feet to water from bridge. My mother was fishing with a cane pole when she got a bite on her hook and she snatched so hard that the fish came out of the water and went straight up, when it reached the end of her line the fish came off and went as high as the bridge rails.  I started laughing and mother was telling me to get the fish before it could get back in the water.

My brother and I would gather fish bait during the summer months each week and dad would take us fishing on Saturday.  We looked forward to this every week.  In the spring we would get willow grubs by scooping up mud and leaves and straining through a screen wire mesh.  We would go to gravel pits and get where a lot of willow trees grew.  While in high school, a friend, my brother and I would go to the river and camp for days and fish.  My friend’s dad rented this old house next to the river for us to sleep in when it got to cold to sleep out on the bank of the river.

My brother and I would take our mother crappie fishing.  This one highway had backwater on both sides for about 1/2 mile. There was enough room to park off road and fish.  We would carry our boat over the rails and put it in the water.  We would go out to where we knew some submerged stumps were. We would catch our limit.  Our mother really enjoyed this. Fishing has been a large part of my pleasure time.

My dad and mother loved to fish and camp.  Dad rented a campsite on the river by the year to park his camper.  They would spend most of the summer camping and fishing. Dad’ neighbor and close friend rented a spot next to dad’.  He was retired so he and his family lived on the river each summer.  They would go out fishing at night and tie up under a bridge for some crappie fishing.  I would go out with them when I was down there. Dad had a large barge tzhat we would fish from.