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| Asking for it by looking like this. |
There was a reservoir at the south end of Santaquin that had always
been full of what was known in the local dialect as 'garbage fish'. A
garbage fish is a non-game fish and in the case of this reservoir
consisted of white bass, mud catfish, and the ever present carp. The
other fish would occasionally be caught and eaten by legitimate
fishermen but the carp was universally despised and I never knew of
anyone who actually ate one. Most of the time there would be big
piles of rotting carp where disgusted fishermen had thrown them on
the bank to die. Sometime when I was about 11 the city decided to
clean up the reservoir and stock it with trout which are much more
desirable for sportsmen. To get rid of the garbage fish they decided
to drain the reservoir all the way down to the dirt. This made for a
massive concentration of fish as the pond got smaller and smaller.
When it was about half empty, Justin, Ryan and their cousin Nathan
and I were going up there fishing everyday because the concentration
of fish made them extra aggressive and hungry and it was awesome. The
pond continued to drain and when it was down to about ten percent
left the fish were concentrated enough and the water was so shallow
that we were able to switch from rod and reel and go attack in a
fishing melee. We brought spears and pitchforks and went to work
hauling out the suffocating fish. We got there early in the morning
and spent the whole day knee deep in mud stabbing fish. We were sore,
exhausted and sunburned and yet still compelled to press on stabbing
and throwing the fish up onto the bank, hundreds and hundreds of
doomed carp piled up and rotting in the sun. It wasn't fun after the
first hour or so but we were literally unable to stop the slaughter
until the sun was going down and we were physically and emotionally
spent. We staggered the mile home washed off and fell into bed. After
that day we didn't go back for years. I personally didn't fish there
for 20 years. I guess we just had to get the madness of killing out
of our system and then it was gone.
