Many of my earliest memories are of fishing trips with my mother and my grandmother. We would walk to farm ponds near the house or branches nearby. My grandmother had a five gallon lard bucket that contained all her tackle - hooks, corks, split shot, extra line, fish stringer and live bait. Her cane pole had the line wrapped around the end for a couple of feet in case the tip broke. She always wore a straw hat with a scarf under it.
We fished for anything that would bite. No tiny bream was too little to take home and clean. "It'll make the grease smell" was the comment as it went on the stringer. Everything from bluegill to shellcracker to pumpkinseed were "brim" and we ate them all. Catfish were common catches and a few bass fell to our baits.
I think I got hooked on bass fishing when I caught my first one. It hit a red wiggler in the hole below Usury's pond dam. Although only about 11 inches long, it pulled and jumped like nothing I had ever hooked before. I'll never forget it and have enjoyed every bass I have caught since that one when I was about 10 years old. I think my mother was as excited about it as I was.
One sight I will never forget is my mother sitting under the Raysville Boat Club dock at Clark's Hill. We had joined when I was 16 years old and had spent many wonderful hours fishing, skiing and riding in our boat. By the time this happened, I was in my late 20's. My mother often slipped away and fished by herself under the dock. That day, we had put out some catfish food trying to bait them in. I was walking up to the restroom when I saw her, rod bowed to the water, talking to herself and fighting a huge fish. I watched her for several minutes as she coached herself trying to keep the fish on the line.
When I went down to help her, I just knew she had a big catfish. When she finally got it in, it was a 10 pound carp. It was the best fight she ever had. My father and I joined her and we caught 37 carp weighing 175 pounds during the next two days. That was when we learned to can carp and make fish patties out of them.
Mom went fishing with me for all kinds of fish. We caught bass, bream, crappie, catfish and carp at Clark's Hill. She would spend all day in the boat and, just like me, not want to go in at the end of the day.
One experience really brought home to me how much mom loved fishing. She hated snakes. One day, as we walked to the boat, we saw a water snake go into the hole in the back of the boat where the steering cable comes out. I told her there was no way to get it out. Mom thought about it for a few seconds, got into the boat and went fishing with me. She sat in the seat on the casting platform the whole time and kept a close watch around her feet, but even knowing her most dreaded nightmare, a snake, was in the boat, did not keep her on the bank.
If your mother taught you to fish, allowed time for you to fish or ever encouraged you to go fishing, Mothers' Day is a good time to thank her. Take her fishing for her day. Share your trip with me at fishing.guide@about.com.
