There’s nothing like wetting a line

Published 8:44 am Monday, May 6, 2019

Until recently, I didn’t even have the time of day to think about throwing my fishing tackle in the car and run either down to the Watauga River or up to Wilbur Dam and throw out a little bait to see what might happen.

I grew up with a fishing pole in one hand and a can of night crawlers in the other as I didn’t live far from the Holston River while growing up in the Yuma community of Scott County.

It was a certainty that I tried to keep all my chores caught up so my mother wouldn’t have a reason for me not to go fishing.

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Thanks to my grandfather, I was able to find some dandy little fishing holes all along the banks of the Holston where one might throw out and hook either a big Redeye, bass, catfish, sun perch or bluegill—whatever you might want to refer to them as, carp, and the most annoying Horny-head sucker fish.

It didn’t matter to me as long as I was catching fish—I was in my little piece of Heaven on earth.

The night crawlers I mentioned early was one of the ways I made extra money as a young boy as my grandfather and I would spend hours on end after an early-evening rain in his yard catching this sure-fire fish bait.

During my growing up years, we sold hundreds of dozen of those rascals either out of my grandfather’s driveway or at a local sporting goods store that would buy 50 to 100 dozen at a time from us.

I also had access to a worm that my granddad referred to as Georgia wigglers which resided in the ditch line just across the road from where the river ran parallel with the ditch.

Man, you talking about a crazy creation from God—those worms could grow large and when you picked them up they could wiggle their bodies so hard that they could separate themselves to try to escape.

Needless to say, I had plenty in my bait arsenal that also included the occasional creek minnow or crawdad which were loved by those big bass.

I was thinking about this era this past week as I took a couple of hours to drive up to Wilbur and enjoy a little time doing something that I have missed for a long time.

How bait has changed. Instead of a worm getting stuff all over your hands putting it on a hook, now you pull out a jar of Corn Yellow or Salmon Garlic trout bait and round it out like a paper wad on your hook.

The wind was rippling the water pretty good and needless to say trying to determine a bite from a gusty pole shaker was a little hard.

However, what wasn’t hard was being able to sit back and remember when times were without worry or stress just sitting there and watching as the geese came shooting on top of the water and listening to the sounds of nature that were abundant.

It didn’t even matter that I didn’t catch anything because I have discovered that fishing isn’t just about catching anything.

Fishing is about slowing down, meditating on one’s creator and His creation, and taking time to focus on all of life’s blessings that one doesn’t think of in his or her busy schedule.

I also discovered that it’s a great place to take a 10 or 15-minute power nap to clear your mind.

Regardless of how everyone looks at fishing, just getting out and throwing out a couple of lines might be the best prescription one can take.

It certainly did me a lot of good just wetting a line once more.