My dad loved to fish. Teaching my two brothers and me how to use a fishing pole, he gave us each the push we needed to fall in love with fishing as he had.
By the time I was twelve, I must have caught my weight in carp, though the accomplishment carried little weight in our part of the country. Around here carp are considered trash fish, a term used for carp, bullhead, and buffalo, to name a few.
By the time I was twelve, I must have caught my weight in carp, though the accomplishment carried little weight in our part of the country. Around here carp are considered trash fish, a term used for carp, bullhead, and buffalo, to name a few.
I have had occasion to eat carp, bullhead, and buffalo. By my own taste, bullhead and buffalo both deserve to be called trash, but carp prepared properly can be delicious.
Preparing and cooking carp requires extra time and effort, than say, cooking crappie, a light, flavorful fish that requires a minimum of cleaning and preparation. I can only surmise that a cook first spread the rumor that carp were trash to discourage fishermen from bringing them into the kitchen.
I can imagine a fisherman being stopped at the door by a cook wielding a broom in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. If that wild-eyed cook told a hungry fisherman to throw that filthy thing in the trash, to the trash it surely went.
Preparing and cooking carp requires extra time and effort, than say, cooking crappie, a light, flavorful fish that requires a minimum of cleaning and preparation. I can only surmise that a cook first spread the rumor that carp were trash to discourage fishermen from bringing them into the kitchen.
I can imagine a fisherman being stopped at the door by a cook wielding a broom in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. If that wild-eyed cook told a hungry fisherman to throw that filthy thing in the trash, to the trash it surely went.
Hence, by my own assumption, came the term “trash” fish. It is just a theory I have, but after more than 50 years of family fishing trips and subsequent fish fries, I think I know fishermen and their cooks pretty well.
On our family outings, hopeful fishermen piled into one vehicle. In a time long past, before infant car seats, before seat buckle laws, vehicles' passenger limits were largely ignored.
Our 1953 Dodge station wagon held 12 passengers, twice the number it might legally hold today. When I was a kid, people thought nothing of having the youngest in their lap and telling the rest of the youngsters to ride in the compartment above the rear wheels. We gladly squeezed into any spot at the prospect of pulling the biggest fish of the day up the bank.
My dad, 5' 4", wearing worn blue jean overalls and a soft-billed cap to cover his balding head, outfitted our wagon with six-inch metal hooks mounted along the side of the car roof, just above the front and rear doors. The hooks served as carriers for the cane poles we kids would use to fish. Anyone could tell by looking we were headed out for a family fishing trip. Today, loaded as we were, we would probably be headed for jail.
If we could afford the extra gas money, someone might offer to drive a second vehicle, but that was a rare occurrence. We valued thrift over comfort. As for safety, well, in our minds, as long as no one was riding on the hood or strapped to the roof, we felt thrifty and safe in our station wagon packed with family.
Our favorite fishing holes were about a 30-minute drive from home on Oologah Lake in northeastern Oklahoma. As soon as we arrived, the selection of a fishing spot was a process filled with anticipation and hope. Though informal, based upon seniority, the process was clearly understood among even the youngest.
As any fisherman knows, you must fish where the fish are, but more importantly where the desirable fish are. As one of the youngest, by the time my turn came to take a spot to fish, I had to take what was left. My expertise became backwater fishing by default.
Backwater, not entirely stagnant, lacks oxygen game fish need to survive. The most undesirable fish thrive in backwater, bullhead, shad, buffalo, and, using the description I have most often heard used by many people I consider experts, the "nasty" carp.
I have reached such a respectable age, I can take top choice wherever I go fishing, looking for fresher water where bass, crappie, and catfish lie. My husband, like me, steers clear of areas where carp may be feeding. But that was not always so.
To be continued. . .
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Links I LikeTake Me Fishing!
If you have not been so adventuresome as to take a child fishing, then you must at your first opportunity. The website above can get you started.
If you think you have to drive far from home to find a place to fish, do a little research. You may be surprised to find a fishing hole within walking distance.
Oologah Lake Information
This website has an outstanding photograph of the reason most of my childhood fishing haunts and swimming holes are completely gone. The Verdigris River became dammed by the completion of the Oologah Lake project in 1963. I was in 3rd grade.
I vividly remember so much that lies at the muddy bottom of the Lake. I remember being a skinny, long-legged girl swimming at Will Rogers State Park, now gone. The park had no swimming areas, but we did not care about such things. We enjoyed what we could while we could.
The valley of the area now known as Goose Island are the places I remember best. We fished a good spot until it was gone, swallowed by the rising waters, and then we sought out another. On abandoned farms, orchards still stood, and our family snatched apples and pears, picked blackberries and plums until those, too, were taken by the waters.
I remember the first tree I ever climbed was an old pecan tree that towered there above the landscape. My cousin Mary, five years my senior, had climbed it before. Surprised I had never climbed a tree, she showed me what to do.
I climbed right up, though not as high as Mary. I was far more scared than I wanted her to know. She asked me what I would do if I fell. I told her I would call myself an ex p'con, pronounced like ex-con. I found out that day I was afraid of heights, but I also learned I could make someone laugh.
I think of that tree and compare it to the log floating some years later in the area now known as Red Bud Bay. That log floated submerged beneath the surface and made a perfect diving area for the kids in my family.
I suspect some fisherman towed the log into the cove for fun, since several more showed up after that. Our diving log had a diameter of 4 feet and a length of 20 feet, its surfaces smoothed and worn from years rotting in the waters of Oologah Lake. How many kids I wonder, played on that tree before and after it died?
I learned in one of my college philosophy classes that a Greek philosopher Heraclitus who lived in the 5th century B.C.E. knew a thing or two about rivers and about returning. Heraclitus is credited for saying that no man steps in the same river twice. I think I know how he feels.
In my 60th year on this planet, I have finally come to understand what I have heard many times, "You can never go back again," not to your family or your childhood places like the Verdigris River. Everything changes, even ourselves. If I could go back, I would not want to go, not even to my old favorite places of the Verdigris. I am too busy making new memories.
This website has an outstanding photograph of the reason most of my childhood fishing haunts and swimming holes are completely gone. The Verdigris River became dammed by the completion of the Oologah Lake project in 1963. I was in 3rd grade.
I vividly remember so much that lies at the muddy bottom of the Lake. I remember being a skinny, long-legged girl swimming at Will Rogers State Park, now gone. The park had no swimming areas, but we did not care about such things. We enjoyed what we could while we could.
The valley of the area now known as Goose Island are the places I remember best. We fished a good spot until it was gone, swallowed by the rising waters, and then we sought out another. On abandoned farms, orchards still stood, and our family snatched apples and pears, picked blackberries and plums until those, too, were taken by the waters.
I remember the first tree I ever climbed was an old pecan tree that towered there above the landscape. My cousin Mary, five years my senior, had climbed it before. Surprised I had never climbed a tree, she showed me what to do.
I climbed right up, though not as high as Mary. I was far more scared than I wanted her to know. She asked me what I would do if I fell. I told her I would call myself an ex p'con, pronounced like ex-con. I found out that day I was afraid of heights, but I also learned I could make someone laugh.
I think of that tree and compare it to the log floating some years later in the area now known as Red Bud Bay. That log floated submerged beneath the surface and made a perfect diving area for the kids in my family.
I suspect some fisherman towed the log into the cove for fun, since several more showed up after that. Our diving log had a diameter of 4 feet and a length of 20 feet, its surfaces smoothed and worn from years rotting in the waters of Oologah Lake. How many kids I wonder, played on that tree before and after it died?
I learned in one of my college philosophy classes that a Greek philosopher Heraclitus who lived in the 5th century B.C.E. knew a thing or two about rivers and about returning. Heraclitus is credited for saying that no man steps in the same river twice. I think I know how he feels.
In my 60th year on this planet, I have finally come to understand what I have heard many times, "You can never go back again," not to your family or your childhood places like the Verdigris River. Everything changes, even ourselves. If I could go back, I would not want to go, not even to my old favorite places of the Verdigris. I am too busy making new memories.
