"First Fish Out of False River . . ."

Do you remember catching your first fish? I do. It was quite memorable for me, a little boy.

Our neighbor a couple of house over, had a fishing pier, well really a pier to support his boat house (and boat).

But on cane pole with my trusty bobber, and a big fat worm I was after it. Others were out there but I do not recall who it was but there was at least one adult. We were after sun fish, Chincapins or we called them perch. Quite delicious fried up but you had to catch a ton of them to get enough to eat. And they were kind of bony too but they are worth it.

Not satisfied as I was not catching anything I switched to a different location on the other side away from all the others (who were catching fish, not me~!). All of a sudden my float went under and I yanked real hard. Then I knew I had something big on the line. I yelled for help (and advice on what to do now that I had caught one). I got help right of way and after fighting the fish for a while, we decided (at least the mentor decided) it was too big to just pull in up in the air.

So we dragged it along the pier and got on the river bank and pulled it in. It was about a five pound Cat fish. A big one. Really big for me.

Took up the hill and my father was home. He skinned it and we ate it the next day. It was Friday and in those days good Catholics ate fish on Friday. Normally we my mother would have gone to the fish market to get Cat fish but not this go round. It was enough to feed four of us, two adults and my sister and me. My older brother ws off to boarding school in Indiana (and he misssed out on all the doings).

Great story, that must have been around 1949 or so. Long time ago but who could forget catching a monster in False River. And I did not ever catch another Cat fish again.