The river bank was steeper, and still muddy when my son Chris and I cautiously made our way down to Fishing Beach. Just a few rocky feet of beach, actually, but enough to use.
Wish I could say I caught this blue catfish all by myself. The truth was Chris first caught the bait at a lake. Then he made the rigs and baited my hook and even cast it out for me. I felt like the girl. Here's another glamour shot of me.
The funny thing about sandy mud is it gets more slippery with each footstep. So getting back up the bank was even more of a challenge. We used the bank sapling trees to brace our feet.
Here, I'm waiting in the trees for Chris to hand me up some of the fishing gear. He brought two of his really fine rods and reels. Once again, I slipped and got a muddy bottom.
When Chris was about six years old, I took him jigging for smelt. We lived in Seattle, and the smelt were running up a river to the north. We left in the chilly dark, a real feat for me. We were on the dock at dawn with our tree branches with line and three treble hooks. We snagged plenty of the small, silvery, very tasty fish. Chris didn't want to stop. I practically had to pry his little cold hands from the pole and drag him away.
What had happened was he was infected with the fishing bug, smaller than a b.b. After that, we often fished from the Seattle dock, where we mostly caught colds. When I bought the farm here in Missouri, I was glad to have my own river. Each year, Chris's catfish catch got bigger, as did he.
When he was in high school, Chris stayed with his dad and caught some really big fish there in wild Alaskan waters. His biggest catfish here in Missouri was a fourteen pound one. My biggest is in the photo, three or four pounds.
Chris is now a grown man who knows how to fish, despite my totally inept example. He is patient, showing me how to hold the rod and when to reel in. Catfish do not come quietly in to shore. Channel cat actually make a noise. I must say, it was easier to just snag smelt when they swam upriver.
The best part of fishing with my best fishing buddy is that he filets the catch.
After dinner, I buried the fishy remains in the garden, in an unmarked shallow grave that will have the best veggies ever, next spring.
