Gone Fishin My Way
 

Gone Fishin My Way

Back when I was young and in the military service I always loved the
out doors.
One time when stationed in Altus Oklahoma, myself and my best friend
decided to go fishing. We thought the Red River was the best
candidate location for an expedition worthy of our efforts.
We had become accustom to and adopted a special brand of beer as
our favorite but knew it was not readily available down along the
river where we were going. Not knowing how long we would be gone it
was determined that the least thing that we wanted was to run out of
beer.
This determination leads us to think that we could bring any left
over beer back with no problem. Packing the bare necessities and
some food, plenty of food, pork and beans were the main stay, along
with Vienna sausages and crackers, potato chips, Fritos corn chips,
Sardines, crackers and some other long forgotten items. Now the six
cases of Tuberg Beer, being in long necks as we call it now, was not
light weight cargo. If you add every thing together it would be a
car load for the average automobile. Considering we were driving a
Chevrolet Corvair, this was a formidable load after adding a blow-up
life raft type boat, trout line anchors (Cinder blocks 4 each)and
fishing tackle galore.

But off we went reaching a predetermined point within hours and well
prior to sun set.
The drive was hot and tiring due to not having air conditioning in
the Corvair. The river bank was sandy and smooth, so we drove down
rather close to the bank. Unloaded the
Blow up boat and aired it up, put the trout line anchors, bait and
lines in it and started down the river wading. Lindsey was leading
on the bow line, some thirty feet ahead of the boat. Considering the
trek was relatively benign, I snuck a ride on the aft end of the
Pontoon boat, of course without the tow boat captain knowing I had
hitched a ride.
Lindsey yelled out, “when will we know where we have arrived at the
spot we want�, I replied “you will know by the depth of the river�.
I had in mind that a good hole in the river bottom would yield the
best catch of fish.� Shortly thereafter, Lindsey disappeared
under the water, what a hole!. He bobbed up, sputtering; it was too
deep to wade any more. I yelled Bingo, we have arrived at ye old
fishing hole!

We set out all the lines and baited the hooks. Now, of course being
the good planners that we were, we had one case of beer with us, and
were appropriately applying the intended use of it, but its
longevity in jeopardy, we headed back to the car. Arriving in the
nick of time, and with the remainder of the first case of beer,
lingering, with the re-stoking in mind. Knowing we had just a
limiter amount of time to get back to the fishing lines and check
them for the catch, we loaded more bait and another case of beer.

Lardy me the catch of the night, a lot of cat fish. We hauled in
several twenty some odd pounds each of beautiful catfish. Putting
them on the stringer and rebating the hooks all night. Then came the
departure, following retrievals of taut lines and leaving the cinder
blocks, we loaded up.

Abut then came the problem of the load and river sand. The Corvair
with the engine in the rear and four cases of beer and an estimated
400 pounds of catfish as well as pork and beans, sardines and what
have you we were not only overloaded but stuck in the sand.
Decisions, decisions, we made one and spent quite a while carrying
out the mission, what was it? Drink the beer; eat the beans and
stringer the fish in the river.

My fishing buddy, Lindsay Nelson and I had an experience that was
not rivaled by many although we did try. We did make it back with
about all the fish and none of the beer, would you consider the trip
was successful, we did, only because we made it back.

BILL P. �




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