I once watched a neighbor take a utility knife to a pair of half used Timberline boots and cut them to pieces then throw them into the garbage. “Why are you doing that? They look fine!” I tell him. He says they no longer fit and he “wasn't about to let anyone else enjoy this treasure for free, should they find it.”
“You chintzy, competitive un-Christain bastard.” I thought. “Can't let anyone else possibly rise in the world ahead of you huh? Even if it's something you can't use.”
You know who else is like this? Fishermen and I mean the weekend variety.
I used to fish but not that intensely. I had a cheap rod and bail reel from Benny's when it was still open. I did most of my fishing on the Ten Mile River or the Duck pond in Slater Park and you wouldn't want to eat anything coming out of either because the mud column in both have enough heavy metals to kill a wombat. Granted, the water itself has cleared up markedly over the years but that bottom mud...doesn't move...it stays...and that's where the arsenic, mercury and copper whatevers reside. Though tell that to the Vietnamese who fish there, they'll take anything home that's not glowing yet.
I had caught the first fish of my life when I was 10 by the Country club dam. It was just a sunfish but I was surprised the little bugger didn't want give up. It wasn't like netting a gold fish out of your aquarium. When I landed the sunfish, I thought it was Jonah the Whale. “Lookit the size of him!” I declared to J McK who was fishing alongside me. Of course, I'd say that, it was my first one. It's exciting!
As kids, we never needed licenses and DEM rules did not apply (because we said so!). We used Del Monte Nibblets corn as bait which would work wonders some days. If you didn't catch one of the three million sunfish there, it was catfish or pufferfish as we called them. It was pretty much catch and release for us as it was a lazy way to spend a summer day. Though we came across some rural Seekonk kids, when it was still farmland then ,who would catch a fish, shove a firecracker in his mouth and light it. The predictable SPLAT would happen and you'd see smoking, headless fish all curled up by the bank. Oh how they laughed! I wondered what they did to the pigs, sheep and cows back in Seekonk when they were bored.
As I got older I fished less and less as it became BORING. The only respite to that was going fishing in the same spots but it was an excuse to drink beer by the river bank with some others. I might cast two or three times and never really checked to see if the bait was hooked or lost. After a while, lying on my back became more important.
Now why some fishermen are jerks.
At a bar I once frequented, I'd get into conversations with others who, as 40 somethings, were still fishing, heavily. They had the gear, the john boats, the tool kit full of lures. line and everything you could possibly need. They.were.SERIOUS.
However...when I asked what kind of lures, where they fished, what times...they'd clam up like you were trying to get them to admit they boffed their first cousin at one time. They hid those deep STATE secrets like they were the encryption keys to our spy satellites.
“Oh...c'mon! I'm not asking about that favorite stump you fish off of, I just want to know what Manchester pond in Attleboro has...Perch? Bass, what lures do you use?”
I ain't kidding, they'd stare at me like I was speaking Korean.
After knowing them for several years, these drinking cohorts...they reacted to me like I just walked off the street. Change the subject and they'd get all chatty once more like nothing happened.
I found the same true of salt water types, surf casters. I was in Touisset point, on the Warren side when we came across some guy and his son surf casting around 10PM. We hung out about 50 feet away, watching and just talking to ourselves when he yanked a blue fish onto the shore. He tells his sun to get the “baseball bat” and come back fast. When the son handed off that bat, Dad started beating the fish about the head like a serial killer. We came up to him to see what he had landed I asked him why he murdered that fish like he did.
“I want him DEAD! I'm not putting my fingers into that toothy mouth to get my tackle back unless he's dead and gone!”
Ok..I get it. I was told later blues can snap your finger off if they want to.
As he was gutting the fish, I asked when they ran, what times of year. He looked up like I asked for his credit card number. No answer.
I guess I was a competitor for the six bluefish that inhabited the entire Narragansett Bay. Best to remain closed mouthed huh? He wants those last five for himself! How will he ever feed his family if I knew when blues run?
I still fish, probably once a year, but off the side of a largish craft that has cheeseburgers, a bar and beer if you're so inclined. Not only that, the captain barks out WHERE the fish are, how to get them and for a buck, will skin them for you too. My only complaint is that each time I go, I misread the summer sun's ability to fry me red, even though I have people hand me sunblock and I put it on scantily. Maybe next year I can smarten up.
And to those guys who still hoard their secret ponds, streams and 11PM fishing trips, would you mind if I tossed weighted M80's into the pond while you fished? It makes a really cool THUMP sound and the water sometimes gushes into a little geyser. Don't worry, I won't know where the fish really are...will I?
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