When I woke up this morning, my brain, Peanuts, had been dreaming about fishing with my dad. My dad loved going fishing and this post is about some of those happy memories.

Father/Toddler Hunting Trips

Fishing is one of the main things I can remember doing with my dad, besides going on Pheasant hunting trips with him when I was really little. On these hunting trips, he would balance his loaded gun on the front seat of our Pontiac at the ready, and I would stand on the front seat next to his loaded gun.

Of course, this was way before seat belts and car seats.  Little kids simply stood on the front seat of the car or sat in the back seat when they got too tall.  In this case, because it was just my dad and me, I got to stand in the coveted spot on the front seat right next to the loaded gun.

I remember my dad having a can of Olympia beer between his legs and every once in a while, he’d slow down the car to shoot at a Pheasant through his open window (that’s where the hunting part came in) and then he’d take a sip of  his Olympia beer. (Probably in consolation for having missed it by a mile.)

If my dad would have had a Baby on Board sign in the back window in those days, it would have said:

Fishing with Father

Anyway, when my dad would take my two brothers and I  fishing, he would make each of us a fishing pole. He’d cut a long branch from a tree and tie fishing line, a sinker and a hook to the end of it.

Then we’d pull out a poor, defenseless,  angle worm from our coffee can filled with them — digging up worms being one of our many personal pursuits at the time — and affix the poor dear to the hook. (The whole thing just seems downright cruel thinking about it now.) Then we’d stick our lines into Coppei Creek and sometimes we’d even catch a fish!

Giving Suckers More Than an Even Break

The ones my brothers and I  always caught were called suckers, and we had to throw them back because they weren’t good to eat.  But for some reason, the ones my dad always caught were called trout; those we’d eat.

My dad taught us how to clean fish when we were pretty little.  We’d cut into them and peel out their innards and launch the whole mess downstream. Thinking back on it now, it’s a wonder we didn’t get typhoid from eating the fish we caught in Coppei Creek.

Before Bruce Willis

One summer, we went on a vacation to Coeur d’Alene lake. Back then, it was just one of many Podunk lakes within driving distance of our town — way before Bruce Willis and his trendy ilk/elk moved there.

On that vacation, I caught a seven-pound “junk” fish.  Boy was it ugly!  It looked just like the fish pictured below that was recently caught alive, a lovely little fish thought to have been extinct for 65 million years.

We were all afraid of the junk fish I caught.   I made my brother, Peter, take the hook out of its mouth.  And I remember Peter told me, “If you’re old enough to fish, you’re old enough to take the hook out of its mouth.”  And I thought, “Gee he’s right.”  He was nine and I was six, but I never forgot this sage piece of brotherly advice.

Boy Those Flowers Smell Healthy

The proprietor of the resort took the seven-pound junk fish off our hands and put it in the flower bed in front of his store to fertilize his flowers.  He didn’t bury it, so it laid there decomposing for the rest of our vacation.

Everyday we’d walk by it on our way to the lake.  It was kind of sad really. The more it stunk the more we realized our vacation was coming to an end.

That’s all the time we have for  fun with dad memories, Dear Readers, but I hope you’ll check back in for more Fun with Dad (and maybe even Fun with Mom) memories which I’ll write about as soon as my brain, Peanuts, remember some! 

Until next time . . . I love you