"Gone Fishing"

My son-in-law Joe Thomas and my Grandson Ryan are in Mexico filming a TV episode on what is probably the best Bass fishing lake in the world, El Salto. It brought back memories of when I used to go fishing as a teenager. When I was about 13 years old a neighborhood friend named Eddie Nastold who had a very bad Red birthmark over his eye and cheek about the size of Saucer. Eddie is the one who first introduced me to fishing. I did not have a rod or reel or any other fishing equipment. The first time we went he lent me a Rod & Reel. We lived in the middle of the concrete jungle as it was known on Milton Street located in Mt. Auburn. We usually went to a “Pay Lake”. To get there since we has no transportation we went by Streetcar, the old fashioned kind which ran on rails and overhead wires. Our favorite place was an old gravel pit in Elmwood Place someone converted into a “Pay Lake”. After we got there we still had to walk about a mile to the lake. After fishing we would get home the same way we got there with stringers full of catfish. Everyone would stare at us in amazement as we stood in the aisle of the streetcar with the stringers resting against the floor. We were close to a black community and Eddie would take his catch to their community and sell them. It seems fried Catfish was a favorite there. I took mine home and Mom would fry them.

In those days there weren't any push button spinning reels like they have today for beginners. The reels we used were called Level wind reels. They would wind your line from side to side on a spool when you retrieved your line after a cast. I don't think Nylon had been invented yet because the line we used was braided cotton. Casting was another matter altogether. When you cast you would hold your thumb lightly on the spool of line just enough to keep the weight of the sinker from unspooling your line. As you casted you had to hold the spool tight during the cast and release slowly as the line spilled loose towards the water. This was almost an art as if you did any part of this wrong you could wind up with a gigantic “Backlash” with your line so tangled and twisted it was difficult to untangle by repeatedly pulling on the loops till you got it untied and could once again reel it onto the spool. You learned quickly not to do this as you would spend all your time untangling instead of fishing. Usually I fished with 2 Rods & Reels, One I used for Bottom fishing with 2 or 3 hooks and a heavy sinker so I could get to the middle of the lake. The other one was used with a floater which would suspend the hook about three feet below the surface. When you fished with a floater sometimes the wind would move it causing the line to be slack and laying on the surface, Eddie taught me that when you got a bite on the line with the floater to pick up your rod and run about 20 feet away from the lake to take out the slack and set the hook. The first time I tried this I fell flat on my Butt. It took a long time to get out of this habit.

In order to fish you first have to have bait. In those days I don’t know of anyone who actually bought bait. Our favorites were
1. Night Crawlers and/or worms,


In order to catch the very large Night crawlers you have to go at night after it had rained. We used to go to "Eden Park" On hand and knees with a flashlight. You had to creep slowly and silently on the wet grass until you spotted one and clamp your hand down on it. They are always half in their hole and half lying on the grass. You had to gently pull them out of their hole, sometimes massaging their belly to get them to release otherwise they would break in half, OOPS!. Your pants got very wet from the knees down.



2. Giant Black Roaches.
This is one bait I disliked catching or using, It gave you a creepy crawling feeling when you were catching or using them but they were very good bait! These were not the common brown roach that seemed to be in every one's kitchen. Three things everyone seemed to have in our neighborhood were Roaches, Bed Bugs and Head Lice. Mom used to kill the Bed Bugs which hid in the creases of our mattress with Kerosene. In Mt. Auburn just off Liberty Street hill their was a small cobblestone alley which ran between some houses. People in that neighborhood weren't very sanitary. There were overturned trashcans and garbage strewn everywhere but at night this was Roach heaven. YUCK! They were shiny midnight black in color and were about an inch long and 1/2 inch wide. They were pretty easy to catch and put in a half gallon pickle jar we brought with us. I wonder if that alley is still full of Roaches.

3. Fresh Chicken Guts.
This is so disgusting I don't even want to post a picture. Years ago there were poultry shops that sold live chickens or would slaughter one for you. There was one at Findley Market that was within walking distance (A long walk!) and they would give us all the chicken guts we wanted free. Naturally only Black people and us would ever want them. We used these when we fished the Ohio River and it was an old black man who taught us how. We did not use our rod & reels there or our lead sinkers because they were round and would be swept downstream by the swift current. He showed us how to use a Bull Durham Tobacco bag filled with sand as a sinker. Bull Durham was a cigarette Tobacco for old timers who rolled their own cigarettes. When the sack hit the river bottom it stayed there. Two hooks and some freshly cut chicken guts and you were ready to ready to relax on the river bank if you could stand the smell of the chicken guts oozing in the sun. It smelled like an old out house. To cast you coiled the line carefully in a circle at your feet and hold the line in your right hand dangling about 3 feet with the hooks and Bull Durham bag and swing this in a vertical circle as hard as you could and then release it towards the water. The other end was tied to a stick in the ground with a bell tied to the line to signal a bite. Sometimes we used night crawlers and worms at the river also.