Ten things I know about fishing part 3

  You cannot make a fish jump on a hook. Even though they have very puny brains, they will not jump on the hook themselves. They have to be hungry. Humans and the neighbor's Belgian Short Hair are the only animals that eat when they are not hungry. I have never seen a fat flounder. I have seen fish in the water looking at my succulent worm and just circle it, never even tasting the squirmy morsel. There was a type of fishing called "snagging" where you caught only really stupid fish, mostly mullet. There was no bait and only a three pronged hook pulled through the water very fast and when it bumped into a fish, it hooked him somewhere. I remember when I was about twelve, getting up early and going fishing with Bobby. Our dads always did it that way so I figured fish must be easier to catch early in the morning while they are having breakfast. I was a paper boy so getting up was not hard and riding the bike through the streets while it was dark was normal. Bobby was always sneaking out at night so he was quite happy to have a reason to be out before the sun came up. We had our bait, frozen shrimp, our poles and our knives. A boy has to have a good knife for fishing. I think we caught a sailor’s choice and that was it. I spent most of the time throwing my knife at a tree trying to stick it like Daniel Boone. I missed the tree and spend two hours looking for my pocket knife. That was the first time I ever remember praying for anything. I asked God to help me find my knife and as we were leaving on our bikes, tired of fishing and because I lost my knife, there it was, off in the distance. How it got there I have no idea but that was a great fishing trip.

  Catching catfish when you are trying to catch anything else Fishing in Florida's saltwater, replace "catfish" with "blowfish". This poor creature with dental protrusions will eat any bait and swallow the hook every time. This fish can grow quit large and is very tasty but poisonous.  I always felt sorry for the damn thing. It looked so helpless just flopping around all puffed up. When I was growing up, people would throw the puffer on the ground and leaving them to die. These bad people thought it would keep the population down if they did not throw them back in the water. That is a fairly ignorant view of God's creation. It was considered a garbage fish. Puffers are not fish that live in garbage; in fact, the puffer fish is a reflection of a healthier water system. A healthy river system means more of all kinds of fish including the ones you want to catch. You could also catch a bunch of something we called "Sailors Choice".  We always threw them back in the water. They were not ugly like the blowfish or the catfish. Every once in a while you would catch a large sailors choice and wonder if it was a keeper. Everyone says they are bony and not much meat. We did not eat the saltwater catfish. I do not really know why. On a typical fishing trip you would catch three or four sailor’s choice, small spiny creatures, a blowfish and an ugly cat. We were trying to catch trout.