Saturday, September 8, 2007

Fishing

One of my favorite things to do with my father was to spend an afternoon fishing. He made the search for worms almost as much fun as catching the fish. He told me that the worms liked places where it was moist and dark. I was fascinated by animals both big and small. I don't think there were many creatures in the Northern hemisphere that I didn't have in my room as pets, dead or alive, during my childhood. He taught me early on about which ones were harmful to me. And that was a good thing, because the rest of our family didn't quite share my infatuation for furry, slithery or crawly type varmints.
Back to fishing now. Dad would make a game out of who could find the most fishing worms for our activity to come. My favorite places were ones that I went back to time after time when fishing was mentioned. An old rotting board next to a shed in the backyard always had big red worms under it. I'd quickly pick up the end sticking out of the ground, and hold on tightly to the squirmy worm until it knew it could not go any farther into the ground. The worm would then begin to back out of its hole, as if it thought it could get all the way out, and then take off from me. Boy did I have it fooled. Not many of them escaped, because I knew the quicker I got a can full, the quicker we would be on our way to fish.
There's nothing like spending an afternoon fishing with your dad. Nothing that is except eating the fresh pan fried fish that you caught together!

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