Fishing with Granddad: Joe's Fork

When I was a child, I used to spend a couple of weeks a summer with my grandparents.  I have written a few stories from these summer adventures before.  See "Confessing" and  "Saving Damsels."  This is another story about fishing with my grandfather.  

Joe's Fork in the fall of 2007, a mile up from the old millpond

"Were you able to dig us some worms?” my granddad asked as he got out of his truck. 

“Yes sir,” I said, “some nice ones.” 

He smiled and headed into the house.   Dinner was being served.  At the table, after he said grace, Grandma berated us both to put on plenty of Off™.  We ate quickly and I ran back into my room and put on long pants and strapped my Kabar™ knife to the belt.  Granddaddy collected the rods and placed them in the back of the truck along with tackle boxes and a can of worms.  We crawled into the truck and pulled out onto the highway, heading east.  About a mile later, the road snaked down into a hardwood swamp.  We crossed Joe’s Fork on a small bridge.  We could have waded across without getting our knees wet.  As we began the climb on the other side, granddaddy turned onto a two-track dirt road that led back into the woods.

 

“Where are we going?” I asked as we bounced in the truck and bushes swished along the sides of the truck. 

"To an old mill pond.”

"What kind of fish will we catch?"

“There should be some nice bream, maybe a jack or a bass.”

“Is the mill still there?"

“No, it burned.” 

“When was that?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.” 

“But the pond is still here?”

“Yeah, the beavers have damned it back up.”

“When you were a boy, did you ever bring grain down here to be milled? 

“No, it was before my time.” 

Realizing I wasn’t going to learn anything about the mill, I thought I might see if there was anything to know about the current residents. “When did the beavers move in here?”

“In the late forties, I think.  Your dad was a boy.”  He paused for a moment as he drove the truck into some brush so he wouldn’t be blocking the road.  It didn’t seem to matter much to me, for the road didn't appear to be well traveled. 

“You sure ask a lot of questions,” my granddad said as he turned the engine off.  Getting out, we sprayed ourselves with Off™, grabbed our rods and stuff and walked back toward the dam which the beavers had restored.  

On the edge of the dam, we dropped our gear.  The vegetation was thick around the pond.  Granddaddy wouldn’t be using a fly rod in here.  We’d both be fishing with worms.  I tied a hook to the line, put a small weight just above it, and attached a bobber about 2 feet high.  The pond was pretty shallow.  Once I had my rod rigged, I stepped out on the edge of the dam and cast into the middle of the pond, just shy of a water moccasin bathing on a log in the waning sun.   Granddaddy headed around the pond and found a place where he could cast his line out and be freed of more questions. 

My bobber floated undisturbed, as I swatted mosquitoes and deer flies which swarmed around my head, pausing occasionally to wipe the sweat from my brow.  It was a hot and stifling in the swamp.  After a few minutes with no action, I was becoming bored.  I slowly reeled in the line, and cast it again, right beside that big snake.  I didn’t faze it, but neither did anything nibble on my worm.  I pulled my line in again. 

“If you don’t leave your line in water, you won’t catch any fish.”  Granddaddy yelled over at me.  He normally didn’t say much when fishing.  He didn't want the fish to be spooked by the talk.  

I cast again, this time dropping the hook just inches in front of that big old moccasin’s head. 

I waited: ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds, a minute.  Nothing was biting.   After a few more minutes, I retrieved my line and made another cast and then another.  The whole time that water moccasin held his position.  I wondered if it was dead, but I knew better.   Maybe it was mocking me.   I could feel the snake getting under my skin.  I retrieved my line again.  Looking in my tackle box, I pulled out a large jitterbug, a top floating lure that works wonders on the bass right around dark.  I tied it on my line, and cast it just short of the moccasin.  I reeled it in, the lure jittering back and forth across the water.  

“What are you doing fishing with that?” my granddad asked.

A Jitterbug

 “Nothing was taking the worms,” I answered as I made another cast, just to the other side of that moccasin.  The snake didn’t move with the line lying across its back.  I slowly reeled, bringing the lure up beside of the log upon which the snake had perched itself.  Then I jerked the rod back hard and snagged the snake in the back with the lure’s treble hook.  The snake snapped around, his cottonmouth angrily exposed.  Then he slipped off the log and started swimming away with my lure.  I let him have some line, but tightened the drag. 

“What did you do that for?”  My grandfather yell, as he beat a path over to me.  “That snake wasn’t bothering you.” 

The snake turned around.  Instead of fighting the line, it started swimming toward me.

“What are you going to do now?”  He asked.

I pulled out my Kabar knife and held it along with my rod.

“What are you going to do with that?” he asked.

“I’ll stick him,” I said.

“Put that knife away,” he yelled as he picked up a stick what was maybe five feet long.  “Use this,” he said handing it to me.  “You hooked him, you take care of him.”  

It had seemed like a good idea, but now I wasn't so sure of it as this was one large angry and deadly poisonous snake.  Thankfully, when about twenty feet away, the snake shook the lure free, then turned and swam in another direction.  I reeled my lure in.  I’d been saved from an angry snake, but now I had to contend with an angry grandfather.

“We’re done fishing,” he said, packing up his gear.

As we walked back to the truck, I heard distant thunder.  A cloud was building that would bring an end to this hot day.  I crawled into the passenger side of the truck.  I knew better than to ask any more questions and my granddad maintained silence for the drive home. 

I was pretty sure there would be no ice cream and Pepsi float before bed.   At least the wind from the approaching stormed would cool the house.  

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