Daily Prompt
Fishing

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

Fishing Memories

I luckily grew up in a family of fishermen. Some of my ancestors from Norway were fishermen in the Arctic waters of the North Sea, a few died at sea. I have eaten fish my whole life and I still love to eat fish, but I am no longer able to go fishing. That is no doubt one of the worst things that can happen to a person, when you have to admit your fishing days are over with.

I have pondered that age old question. Is it better to be sitting in church thinking about being out fishing? Or is it better to be sitting out fishing in your boat thinking about the Lord, who created the fish and the waters they swim in? I think it is a wash.

Many hardy fisherman chop holes in the ice or drill holes with electric augers. Some sit out on the ice on a chair or set up a fish shack with a heater in it. They just drop their fishing lines down the hole in this case.

Some hungry fishermen just use dip nets and buckets, they go to a place like Lake Superior. As the spring runoff water is running into the Lake, smelt by the millions are swimming in those streams. These fishermen just dip their buckets full and go home.

Easier yet, just go to San Diego and pick your fish up off the sand when the grunion run. Cat fish noodling is a big sport, simply drag the fish out of the muddy, contaminated river water with your bare hands. Don’t grab snapping turtles must be rule number one. That’s about 180° different than standing in a quiet mountain stream with your fly fishing equipment, breathing the fresh mountain air, waiting for a big trout to come by in the crystal clear water.

I have worked with a commercial seining crew. They drill holes in the ice in the shape of a mile long baseball field. They start at second base and run long boards with ropes on them back toward first and third base. A mile long seine has each end tied to the ropes, it is then fed into a big hole in the ice at second base. It is pulled under the ice until it gets all the way back to home base. The fish will be taken out of the seine in a large hole at home base and sorted out. The game fish are returned back to the lake. The carp, buffalo and white bass are sold to fish markets.

Our family lived near a lake when we were kids, so we spent a lot of time fishing. As I grew older I owned a few different boats and we would take the boats to different lakes and managed to fish a very large area for a large variety of fish. We also lived at a lake for several years, so we had our own dock in front of the house. That makes for some real lazy man fishing.

The picture that I used on this post shows me on the left, my brother Karlton in the center and my brother Harlan on the right. The state of South Dakota was promoting taking your children fishing and they used that picture of us kids on the fishing manual for that year.

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