Just because we sank a boat there did not make us love Spring Lake
less. We discovered it was only a few miles away and accessible by
bike and the fishing was generally passable. Ryan, Nathan and I and a
rotating cast of neighborhood kids used to get up at 5 get our
fishing gear in hand and bike to the pond to start fishing at the
proper hour for all fishing to start. To the non-fisherman that hour
has an official name it is 'godforsaken'. When we would fish I
would keep a list of names and number and size of fish caught so
there would be no question who was the best fisher-boy. One time the
fishing was really slow so we decided to spice things up with a
little outlaw behavior called chumming. Chumming is when you throw
out a huge amount of bait to lure fish to your hooks neighborhood.
Then we, like the ever resourceful crack dealer, would give a couple
for free but there is a catch and they are hooked. We had not, on
this day of traveling light, brought any corn to tempt the little
fishes so we walked up to the general store that generally had
nothing and found some canned corn for sale. On this fateful day we
had invited a kid from the block named Scott to come fishing and he
had heard the whole plan except for how it was illegal and that was
because he was a little dim. We took our new-found chum up to the
counter and I was about to pay and get back to fishing when Scott
starts asking all kinds of incriminating questions. He was holding
the can after the lady had typed in the price and started to wonder
aloud how we were going to get this corn on our hooks it looked too
small and mushy. Then he started asking why more people didn't try
chumming because it was so easy to do and it helped you catch fish.
The lady behind the counter then asked us what we were planning to do
with this corn. I said Scott was confused and that we, the four
fishing buddies, were just in the store to buy a little snack and a
can of corn sounded about right. She told us that chumming with corn
was illegal and would kill the trout and she was not going to give us
the corn. I was to nervous to ask for my money back so we just left
the store corn-less and fifty cents poorer. We all gave Scott a
couple of whacks in the head for getting us in trouble and being an
idiot. We were worried that the lady was going to call the fish cops
on us and we would get in trouble for attempted chumming so we packed
up and rode home.
