As kids the only thing besides work that my dad did with
us with any regularity was going fishing. And during the summer we
went fishing quite a bit. We are not of that deranged class of
fisherman that will go out in the winter time and anytime we tried to
join that class we met with disaster. We were, and mostly are, fair weather fishermen.
For several years my dad became fixated with cat-fishing in the huge
lake that is about five miles from our house. When he got interested
in something it wasn't like he just liked to do it a lot, he had to
over do it. We used to go out fishing all night long in our boat
and set out trot lines. Trot lines are fixed bits of rope tied off
to tree limbs over the lake that would have a really stout hook tied
to them and be bated with something rotten. We would start out
setting them all up and then make the circuit throughout the night
cleaning off the fish and resetting the the lines. It was not fun, it was a job
and my dad expected us to keep going and collecting an immense amount
of fish all night long without complaining. If you complained he
would get furious and say we could never come out with him again,
which is a sacrifice we were not willing to make. We would take our
fish home, sometimes as many as two to three hundred, at 1-4 pounds a
piece, for what is known in southern as a 'messa fish.' We would get
home and skin them and fillet them and then put the carcases in the
garbage cans. Almost every time dogs and cats would tip over the
garbage cans in the night, spread the rotten mess all over and my
brother and I would have to clean the maggoty mess up. We would eat
some of the fish that day usually breaded and deep fried and then we
would take some to our neighbors and the rest would go into the
freezer to sit for a few years until the guilt of wasting food was
assuaged by the passage of time and then it was thrown out. To this
day my mom is outraged at my brother and I when we throw fish back and
is skeptical about our catch-and-release ethic, she feels that she raised us better
then that. She still has an overwhelming desire to put them in her freezer to wait until
they are ready to be thrown out in year or two.
