The Basics of Fishing

In my little Texas town, there’s a park where I like to go with my fold-up chair and a book.  It’s next to a creek that sometimes has a few fish, some elusive turtles,  and birds who offer up  their songs.   It’s a quiet place.   Occasionally, however, something  will come along and catch my attention.   A few days ago, I noticed a young man, accompanied by his two even younger fellows, sticks in hand, searching the creek banks.   As it turns out, they were on a fishing adventure.   The fishing was simplicity personified.  They’d gone to the store and purchased line, hooks and corks, but rather than attach these items to a rod and reel, or even  a cane pole, they used what Mother Nature provided, fallen limbs from nearby trees.    For bait, they used crickets, grasshoppers, and the occasional  tiny toad frog, all right there.   It caused me to recall a time, when I was very young, going cane pole fishing with my great-uncle Harry on his farm’s stock pond (tank, if you will) in northeast Texas.   Up there, we used worms we dug from the ground.   And Uncle Harry had plenty of cane growing right there on the land.    Back in the present, this story is also a reminder to always have a camera nearby.   I learned that many years ago as a student at University of Texas in Austin.   If you’re a photographer, always have the tools of your trade  within reach.  And I do not mean a phone.