Fish Tails Part I: This was no fish story, ramblings of a young child

In the black-green water of a late summer day, a bobber tests a child’s patience. With each new cast his father and brother look on with disgust. 

"Leave it out there," "It was the wind, "Stop bringing it in", "Okay, now it's tangled" I can still hear their voices making my memories of fishing as aggravating as theirs. 

Never too still to wait, the red bobber resting surrounded by ripples, the unseen ghosts of fish, the phantom waves and the subtle tug on a tense line, the boredom and excitement. 

And finally the stick that the hook was hung on rises to the surface. You crank it until it stops and there is nothing more coming in. "You're snagged!", insert colorful language and no one is catching anything.

I know I must have driven my brother and father crazy, I'll admit it. I still remember the wonderful smells of summer by the lake and spring by a rushing stream. I never caught one trout, I would cast, it would drift, reel it in and cast out again and than there were the birds and insects and anything else to divert my attention. 

I remember the doe balls and tubs of earthworms before they twirled on the hook. The plastic tackle boxes, the poorly crafted rigs and the impatience of a child, I have such fond memories of them all.

We fished into the evening not worrying about the dreaded mosquito, we trudged through muddy stagnant water without concern for the killer amoeba. 

We didn't have all the information from the ever helpful news or the web banner warnings, in fact we were rarely inside long enough to listen much to anything and that ignorance was freedom and it was beautiful.

Next Tommy's Pond: The Sights, the Sounds and Smell of Fishing