3-14-2012 - fish tales and other body parts

    well this is a picture of my dad fishing in the muskingum river below coal run ohio , at some river lots our family rented for years from a local farmer. you could go north or south to grab your worms and grub. we all slept in an old yellow school bus nicknamed the majic bus.

     to me after i quit drinking , the only fit name i could print is spider house on wheels. had a little bit of a time with one spider one night. he bit my leg in seven places and each swelled out to 3 inches in diameter. w/ necrosis in the center. looked nasty to me and i had to put up with it as it didn't heal for a whole summer. wouldn't say it didn't change me also. one thing wont sleep in their house on wheels anymore. will always bring my own.

      but the majic bus served us well for many years , as a bedroom , shelter from the rain and socializing spot. . and many an adult school boy finally realizes his boyhood dream and getting the chance at the adult schoolgirl of his dreams , and finally make out in the back of the bus. and if only the majic bus could tell tales. it was parked there to use when fishing at the river and staying at the lots.. there wasn't much flat area and my uncle and my grandpa had flattened out the area at the bottom of the road as it dipped off old rt. 60 . as you came in you would have to pull up to a cable stretched across the road and locked with a padlock. from there you dove headfirst in car down a steep slope to a bottom area maybe 10 feet off the river level . scalping out every square foot still left you with a long narrow stretch of ground maybe 50 x 1000 ft. long. and the yellow school bus was stuffed up into the road embankment with the road over your head and the river below you. 

       it was amazing hearing the road traffic above you and trying to get to sleep as you were also on a corner. with the trucks coming out of a stretch they would brake at what seemed to be a to a point in the road directly above you.  somehow  you would drift off to sleep , it was from  either the wood smoke from the campfire, or the sound of a radio playing country music, or possibly in the back ground you could hear the low rolling noise of millions of gallons of water swooshing its way downstream taking your memories and bait with it. 

        then you would wake up in morning in the majic bus realizing you were sharing with others and a long walk to the bathroom was in order. it was our campsite. sometimes we would have docks , some would be swept away as trees and debris would come  and go as well as the people who visited and it was still it was well over 30 years of my life we had spent summers there .

     dad caught a 45 pound shovel head catfish with a head width of at least 7 inches. he would nail him to a board putting the nail in his head and then it would hold the catfish till you stripped the skin off the fillets. before filleting he would gut and then fillet out the slabs fish flesh to fry in lard and later be breaded and fed to us . was nothing like today as you don't have to associate your food with a face. 

       we have caught eels and water turtles or snappers,and a gar an ugly nasty looking fish you wonder just what the heck its purpose is but to astound you . sucker fish are slimy and bountiful in the river. but i guess what moved people the most was the big fish. the large carps and the large cats. you would hear them belly flap  at night in the river below . their long lean bodies would slap against the water to let you know its worth fishing for. who wouldn't want to land a 70 pound, or even one the whopper stories of divers going down into the murky depths of the river and reaching out and touching fish as big as humans. supposedly some divers were so scared they said they would never dive down there again. imagine getting loch ness on your little zebco 202 w/ 10 pond line and get him on shore without a dip net. it was the impossible this place was offering. in reality knowing full well your line would snap or your pole would fall apart instead offering you nothing but a dream . but those are the right kind f wet dreams man needs more of. it humbles man to be at the mercy of nature. 

       about 15 years ago when my stepkids and i had spent the weekend at the river lots and i made the mistake of using dads poles when  i went to spend a weekend with the boys who at this time were older, i had divorced their mom about ten years earlier and we were having a distant relationship but was catching up this weekend. buck was 20 and zak had just turned 18 and we were sitting there  b-sing about this or that. i was watching my pole as i owned it, and bucky had borrowed one of dads poles when all of a sudden a quick jerk on buckys pole made us all snap to attention as the pole tip dived to the ground definitely increasing the chance of a large fish. the adrenaline factor went up 10 percent.then the tip eased back up but still moving the tip. 

       i said to bucky to watch his pole as it looked like he was getting a bite,  bucky eased back in the chair and commenced to yammereing about something and i continued to watch as usually the fish bite a couple of times when they bite hard like that. and sure enough as bucky was explaining about this or that, the pole shot straight out of the forked stick that was holding it , and it was flopping into the water as everyone stood in awe watching the pole disappear. i yelled at the boys , quick jump in grab that pole , its dads . zak had his cloths off and was in the water in 30 sec. and searched underneath as much as he could for the fishing pole to no avail. 

        i gave bucky a nice way to go dip shit you lost grandpas poles and i was the one responsible

for them. well it was a good thing that whatever pulled the pole in was able to have the pole,  as they surely didn't want was left on shore . and i wish in some small way i could have went with the fish , rather than have to go back and tell dad i lost one of his poles. zak searched for a half hour along the banks and eventually tiring as we called off the search and eventually i headed home home to tell dad i lost his fishing pole. 

      a lot of things could happen while you were down at the river,  but one thing you didn't mess with or lose was dad's fishing poles. anyhow i informed him that dad you don't have that fishing pole. some big fish came by and sucked it down the river, of course his response was well we were lazy , this and thats and we weren't watching, no good and by the way which one was it.

        i described it the best i could . would have been able to do better job had i had it in my hands,. he had 20 fishing poles but surely it was going to be his best fishing pole and it was of course. the tirade restarted with more enthusiasm then before with him ranting on that i had for some reason plotted against him. 

      out of solace for his hurt feelings i offered up one of the 2 i owned and of course, didn't go in the drink.  of course nothing was going to add up to his favorite pole, but he would look at it and decide which one he wanted. i only offered him the spare i loaned to zak.. there was nothing said  about my pole . well since both were stored side by side, he sees mine and says that will do.  all i could say  was its yours. he says maybe next time you will take better care of my poles . i said gee thanks dad for the advice. 

     the top pic is of my dad , second pic and third as well as fourth is from a stream close to amsterdam, new york , where some kids were fly fishing and offering up some great pics. the pic above is dad fishing in the gulf of mexico off port arancis . he loved to fish and bitch. prefer to keep him busy doing the first so i didn't have to listen to second.