May 5 Outdoor Column

The following column appeared in the Pittsburg Kansas Morning Sun on May 5, 2007:

Grandpa’s Fishing Hole

The sum total of my grandfather’s fishing tackle consisted of an old cane pole, three buff colored corks, a medicine bottle full of hooks, and a red coffee can filled with night crawlers. Had he had his way, no young angler would have been allowed to toil with a modern rod and reel until they had graduated from the Emile Stefanoni College of Cane Poles and Catfish.

So it was, he taught me to enjoy fishing for the simple pleasures. I can still picture so vividly a cork bouncing on the water’s surface and his rusty old coffee can full of worms. I can feel the worn handle of those old cane poles and sense his sturdy arm wrapped around my waist as we sat on the edge of the wooden dock he had constructed.

This past Sunday, I took our two sons out to Grandpa’s Fishing Hole to try their luck on some of the same catfish that their great-grandfather tried to outwit many moons ago. We were not outfitted with a cane pole, rather a small spin-cast reel and rod for Older Son and a tiny Snoopy rig for Younger Son. Older Son is already an accomplished angler at the ripe old age of six, bragging on many occasions of how he caught “more trout than Dad did at Roaring River.” I was interested to see if the “old pro” would tutor his younger brother or leave him to founder on the bank in a tangled mess of fishing line and night crawlers.

Older Son immediately began to position Younger Son in the “good spot” directly in front of a congregation of bluegill that were no doubt attracted by the three crackers he had just tossed into the water. Younger Son then received instruction on how to properly bait his “hook” which was really a plastic casting plug caricature of some prehistoric fish species.

Older Son, now satisfied that his brother was ready to fish, then proceeded to bait his own hook, a chore that, until this spring, was usually reserved for Dad. Older Son then whipped his line, bobber, and baited hook out to where he had seen a catfish rise a few minutes prior. The instant his bobber hit the water, the timeless art that is fishing resumed and young boys were, again, mesmerized by the bouncing of a bobber on the calm surface of Grandpa’s Fishing Hole.

Twelve bluegill and 19 slices of bread later, Older Son cast out his bait and nearly hit one of the large catfishes square on the snout. Within seconds, his bobber plunged down toward the depths and he yelled out, “Daddy, I think I hooked a catfish!” His brother promptly mimicked his exclamation by jumping up and repeating in his two year old vernacular, “Daddy…catfitch!”

The fight was on. Back and forth they struggled, neither angler nor fish willing to surrender even an inch of line to their foe. Daddy began to worry that Older Son’s 4-pound test trout fishing line would snap under the stress of the battle. With much flailing and mudslinging, the big catfish was lead into the shallows and, forgetting our dip net at home, Daddy clumsily grasped the fish’s tail and hoisted him far up on the bank.

The next few minutes was a frenzy of flopping fish, slimy boys, one enthusiastic yellow Labrador retriever, and smiling, happy faces. Older Son first wanted to release his quarry then decided that a fried catfish dinner made his tummy rumble and his mouth water. So, after Mimi (Grandma) took pictures of the fish and fisherman, we placed the fish on one of our trout stringers and migrated to Mimi’s house for a well earned snack.

Upon returning home, Mom made the comment, “boy, would your Papa be proud of you, Dominic.” That was the point when it all began to sink in.

My grandfather, Sons’ great-grandfather, passed away last October. I can still see him on one of our last fishing trips together, sitting on the bank of an Ozark trout stream smiling down at me as a trout rose to take my dry fly. He humorously called my fly rod a “whippoorwill” because of the constant whipping motion associated with fly fishing. He never understood why someone would ruin a perfectly good “cane pole” by strapping a fly reel to it just to cast a lure the size of a gnat. I think Norman Maclean best summed this up when he penned, “one can love completely without complete understanding.”

I think Papa surely would have been proud of both his great-grandsons on that day at Grandpa’s Fishing Hole.