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Alan Creech
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August 03, 2006
> 1:04 PM
memories from childhood > 1 I really should write something, so here we go. I often have flashbacks, thinking about my childhood, mostly in a good way, about things I did, old friends, toys I had, etc. I thought it might be cool to share some of that. Every time you're in a conversation like this, you know you relate to something other people say about their memories. It would be interesting to hear if anyone who reads this has similar memories of their own childhood - share in the comments. Fishing   You know, if you've been around here for very long, or know me for real, that I'm a fisherman. I've been fishing nearly my entire life. My Dad infected me with this disease I suppose. I thank him for that. We mostly fished a small river at home, one of the main tributaries to the mighty Cumberland River - the Poor Fork. We fished for Smallmouth Bass (left) along with the regular "sungranny" (sunfish - right) and "redeye" (aka, rock bass - below right). My Dad would carry my on his back as he waded across the stream when I was 3 or 4 years old. Very good memories. We fished mostly with live bait back then, and yes, I had a Zebco 303 outfit, woo hoo! The trips went something like this: We would decide to go, get all our stuff ready (rods, reels, etc.) which included a "minner bucket" - this is Appalachian mountain dialect for "minnow bucket" (a specialized metal bucket-like container to hold your bait in). We would first head up any of a number of local small creeks which flowed into the river - yes, located in "hollers" - "hollows" in the mountain side. We'd probably spend an hour catching all kinds of live bait with which to fish. That part was almost as much fun as the fishing for me. And if you got thirsty, just make sure no houses upstream, lean down and take a drink - never got sick, ever. Anyway, here were the regular inhabitants of the minner bucket when we were done: the Grampus (our name for a hellgrammite - the larva of the Dobsonfly - see left) - this is a big, nasty-tempered bug with pinchers on it's head, sometimes up to 2.5 inches long! If you weren't careful you could get the blood pinched out of your fingers, seriously. But Smallmouth love these things so there you go. Probably just as common or moreso in the bait collection was the Crawdad (Crayfish to Southerners and city people - see right). Yes, they're like a little lobster, same family. In the mountains, though, we didn't eat them, we just fished with them. Something else with pinchers, true, and yes, you had to be careful with these guys too. Although bigger, they weren't as ugly or mean as a Grampus. My most vivid memory of Crawdadness was lifting up a rock in the middle of a little creek and finding a 6 or 7 inch long blue branch Crawdad, pinchers wide and ready to snap my finger off! Aagghh! Too big to fish with but cool, and scary. The next on the list in the top 3, mostly it was only these three, in the bait collection was the venerable "Lizard" (actually a Salamander, of various types - left). The feesh loooove these babies. These guys are pretty tame compared to the previous two tiny monsters. No biting, stinging or pinching. One thing you had to be careful about and watch as the day went on, was Lizards being in the same minner bucket as Crawdads, who sometimes got hungry and chopped them up. Yeah, live bait has to be, well, live to be much good.THEN, we went fishing, waded from place to place in the stream and caught fish. Fun stuff. And I'm still doing it all these years later. Well, in theory, I still fish, but not very often in practice. So, I believe in fishing but don't practice it enough or very often - sooo, does that mean I'm... not really... a fisherman?? Hmmm. Naw, I'm a fisherman. That's all for now. More memories you may or may not identify with later. Peace. technorati tags > memories, childhood, alan creech, fishing, kentucky, cumberland river 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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