Brook Fishing

Old print of gentlemen "brook fishing" for native trout.

        If tired businessmen could turn back the clock the banks of all the little brooks of the world would be crowded with small boys and their dogs. Of all the days of our youth, the most delightful were those we spent with a dog, a fishhook, and a can of worms along the brook that skirted the farm. 

       Weekdays were taken up with school and chores, but Saturday was our own and from early spring until late fall we haunted its banks. There was a can of worms under the back porch, the by-product of a job of spading we had done in the kitchen garden. 

       Calling the dog, we climbed the gate to the pasture and walked down the cow path across the fields to the brook. It was quiet and restful there; dragonflies buzzed about the pools and a rare leaf floated down to the water from the overhanging trees. At a bend a weeping willow leaned far out over the water. Here a deep pool had been washed out and here the biggest shiners and sunfish lay. While the dog investigated the latest messages in the skunk and groundhog holes along the bank, we cut a willow pole, tied on the line, using a ketchup bottle cork for a bobber. 

       All the long afternoon, as the shadows lengthened across the pole, we sat and watched the bobber, hoping for the big one that we never caught. Chore time came too soon and we reluctantly crossed the meadow again, carrying a half-dozen small fry strung on a piece of packing string. That evening an indulgent mother served them, crisp and brown. We ate them, tails, fins and bones

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