A Basket of Chips: An Autobiography

Basket of Chips, page 057

Career, Rommce, and Fmdy and his children would have remained there and my father and mother would have never met. To continue with the story. I became his chum and companion on his trout fishing trips. The River Jordan was our fishing grounds. The spring of the year was the best season. Set lines on long rods were used. Grandfather would provide a bucket of live minnows for bait. These were caught the day before. We would leave at day light on an old farm wagon drawn by oxen. By sunrise our sport would begin. And if the day proved favorable we would return with a fine basket of fish, - trout, chubs and suckers often weighing from one to four pounds. The method of fishing was to use long lines twenty to thirty feet in length with a large hook and sinker of lead attached to a ten to fifteen foot rod of birch. A live minnow was attached to the hook. (How cruel.) We used about a dozen of these rods and lines. The line was thrown out into the stream and the sharpened end of the rod stuck into the clay bank at an angle that left the tip a foot or two above the water. After all the lines were set, the fun began: to watch them. They were set far enough apart not to tangle. I had my lines, and the first sign of a bite was the bobbing of the end of the rod; then the fun! This was constituted in carefully taking the rod out of the bank and at the right moment landing the fish. This was the part that re- quired skill: to know what kind of fish was at the bait, whether it was a common chub, or a large or small trout. The trick was to hook him when he had the bait sufficiently swallowed. My great adventure on one of these trips was in hooking a four pounder and landing him. But my weight was not enough at the other end of the pole. Twice I tried and had to drop that fighting piece of flesh back into the river. My grandfather was transfixed with laughter at my struggles. But I landed the beauty by putting the rod over my shoulder and running inland as fast as I could. And when I got the fish on land I fell across him until I had him securely held by the gills. He made a fine meal. I felt great pride in helping to provide such a delicacy. When I 57