With schools out and it warming up, this is a good time to go fishing. Thinking about fishing, brings back a lot of good memories.
When I retired from the daily paper more than 8½ years ago, I envisioned doing a lot of hunting and fishing.
But still working in this industry which I enjoy, it’s limited those plans.
My late grandfather Lynch, “Doc,” who I have written about before, and my late Uncle Ed, really taught me how to fish and took me fishing quite a bit. We would fish farm ponds of relatives out in the Deer Creek area west of Edmond, so there wasn’t a problem finding a place.
My grandfather’s four siblings all lived out in the area, plus he had other distant relatives and friends nearby, too, who had some nice fishing spots.
He, I and my uncle would go on Saturday afternoons stretching into the evening hours well after dark. Occasionally, some of my other cousins would join us.
My uncle had concocted a frog gigging device and he had a .22 rifle he would bring along. We’d hunt frogs if the fishing were slow, except for Doc, who concentrated on fishing. He loved fishing so much.
My uncle had the rifle for shooting frogs and for any turtle that might show up on one of our fishing lines.
We would set our lines for the night before leaving, then head back to Doc and Eddie’s house in Oklahoma City where we kids spent the night with them.
We’d get up about 5 the next morning and drive back out to check our lines and fish for a while more. That was so much fun. The whole experience was always a good time, whether we caught a bunch of fish or not.
Of course it was better for Doc and Eddie if we caught some big fish.
We had plenty of worms to go fishing with because my uncle would bury certain kinds of scraps from the table in an area of the yard. Of course, he and Doc also bought shrimp and minnows, too, as needed.
I’ll never forget when Doc got his first fly fishing rod. I don’t recall if he bought it or if someone bought it for him as a gift. But when he got it, he was like a kid with a new toy and he used it all the time afterwards.
Those were good times and I miss not being able to enjoy them anymore. I will always cherish them though.
Last Saturday and Sunday, June 3-4, were the Free Fishing Days throughout the state of Oklahoma. The Wildlife Department does that annually. That meant no license was needed to fish, whether it be in a pond, river, stream, creek or one of the many state lakes in Oklahoma for those two days.