Hoxeyville

Thought For The Day

The first time I ever went trout fishing was with Doug Jensen and Fred Doerr, friends from my church. So when Doug suggested the trip to me I simply told my parents who I'd be going with and it was an automatic OK. My parents were not big on authorizing trips out of town.

I grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, a town built on the back of Michigan's forests. When the area had been stripped of it's trees a new kind of industry was taking shape. General Motors foundries and steering gear manufacturing facilities were beginning to spread across the landscape. But, that's another story. Michigan was a natural wonderland for hunting and fishing. Just an hour or two north of Saginaw there were forests, lakes and rivers in abundance. That's where we were headed.

Fishing had not been a big part of my life. I had done a little fishing at Boy Scout camping outings but that was either from a boat or a dock. What Doug was offering was wading in the stream and fishing. That sounded interesting. It also sounded strange. My parents were deathly afraid of water. I never saw them swim, ride in a boat or dangle their feet in the water. If any of their children got near the water they panicked. That had made natural water sources an unknown to me. I took swimming classes at the YMCA but that was entirely different. I began building danger into the adventure.

Doug explained the fundamentals of trout fishing to me. He said we would use spinning rods, split shot and hooks. Our bait would be night crawlers. To fill out our equipment package we needed old tennis shoes. They would protect our feet while we waded. He said that trout had a soft mouth. I had no idea what that meant but he explained the process to me. It basically meant we should not jerk hard on the line if we got a bite. If we did we would likely pull the hook out of the trouts mouth and injure the fish.

I asked Doug where we were going. He said we'd head up toward Cadillac and look for a good place near there.There were lots of streams in the area. At that particular time in Michigan many people had cottages in the north country. Many of them were small, primitive buildings. That offered only minimal sanctuary, but a chance to be in a natural setting before returning to the factories. that made it possible for them to afford a home away from home. Cadillac was an area with a lot of these cottages.

Doug said we would find an area that had a river by watching the terrain. When we saw a valley, we knew there would be water at the bottom of the slope. We'd look at the area and decide it it were primitive enough for us to set up camp and do some fishing.

It might help if I told you a little bit about Doug and Fred. If I don't you won't believe a word I say.  And, believe me what I am about to tell you could test our relationship. But I promise, it really did happen this way. I'll tell you about Fred tomorrow.

©Herb Ratliff, July 16, 2012, All Rights Reserved