Fish Whistling

         I was about 9 years old at the time. The sun was shining, the air was warm, and the water was clear and deep. This was my first fishing trip and I was so excited I almost fell into the water a dozen times before the morning was over.
         The evening before had been spent night crawler hunting. My uncle had a patch of his yard coated in hay. He said all I had to do was go pick up some hay and look and I should find worms. Sure enough, he was right. I spent the better part of two hours rummaging through the muck and mire that had accumulated under the hay, and had come up with several dozen night crawlers. I was so filthy that I was not allowed into the house to bathe until they had cleaned me off with the garden hose.
         After my bath, I walked into the kitchen and my uncle was pouring beer into a Tupperware bowl. He told me it was because he was going to soak the baby eels he had bought in it overnight because it made them “livelier” to fish with. This is also the same uncle who told me that you fish with night crawlers during the day because they were blind in sunlight and could not see the fish coming.
         When we got to the lake, my dad showed me where I would be fishing from. It was a little rock outcropping into a shallow part of the lake.  It was about ten feet from a drop off into water that was almost eighty feet deep. Turns out this lake was an old strip mine and there were dozens of them around here. My dad told me they stocked each lake with a different kind of fish. The one we were fishing in was a bass lake. So I could not understand what was so funny when I asked him if the little fish by the rock I was standing on were rock bass. I found out those were blue gill. When I finally got a look at one it sure looked like red gills to me. Then I got told it was named because of the blue dot on the back of the gill cover.
         My dad sat down on the rock and showed me how to break a worm before putting it on the hook. Then he showed me how to put it on the hook so that none of the hook was exposed. I dropped the hook into the water just in front of me and immediately my bobber began going nuts. I did not know what to do. I was so excited I almost dropped the rod into the water. My dad grabbed the pole and showed me how to reel it in. It was not a bad fish. It was about a half pound blue gill. He showed me how to grab it so that the fin would not stick me, and how to twist the hook out. He then showed me how to make them whistle. He took the blue gills mouth put it to his mouth and blew. It whistled. He threw the fish back and told me I could try it on the next one.
         I showed him the hook was empty and he told me it was my turn to bait it. I did not do to bad. I only stuck myself twice and only mangled half of the worm. As soon as the worm hit the water I had another fish. It took a little doing but I got it reeled in and off the hook. I was just about to throw it back in when my dad told to make it whistle. So I put it up to my mouth and blew. Nothing happened. I tried again with the same result. I kept trying and kept putting it closer to my mouth until I had the fishes head in my mouth and my dad told me to throw it back. All the while laughing hysterically. I later found out how he did it. He did not blow into the fish’s mouth he whistled into it. He said it was an old joke. I enjoyed doing it to my niece while I was showing her how to fish. But that is a story for another time.
         I got bored of blue gill after a little while and tried my hand at casting out into the deeper water.  My dad moved down shore a few feet when my casting technique involved grass from behind me being ripped out and tossed into the pond by the hook. Eventually I got the bait cast out past the drop off. I waited a few minutes before starting to get impatient. My dad calmed me down and told me it took a little longer to get fish in deeper water. He also told me the longer it took the bigger fish I would catch. Right when I figured it had been long enough that I should be catching a whale, my bobber disappeared under the water. I pulled back on the fishing pole and almost got pulled into the water. It took everything I had to stay on the shore. My dad came to my rescue. He got the pole from be and began reeling this monster in. He said I probably just caught a carp. After about fifteen minutes, he got this fish to the shoreline where he could see it. It was the biggest fish I had ever seen.
         He told me it was a large mouth and when it jumped out of the water I saw why it was named that. My uncle came back from where he had been fishing in time to get the net and scooped up the fish. The whole time my uncle was saying he had not ever seen one that big. They hooked it to this scale they had brought with them and weighed it. It was ten pounds and one ounce. My uncle asked me what I was fishing with. I told him half a night crawler. He said it was a good thing I had not used a whole one or they would still be trying to pull it in. My uncle put the fish in a cooler they had brought for just such a thing. I asked my uncle how he was doing and he said he was going to go get his bow if things did not pick up soon.
         I re-baited the hook and cast out almost to where I was before. After a few minutes my bobber disappeared again. I snapped the pole back and was better braced this time. This one could pull too. I watched the pole bend to the point I thought it would break. I heard my dad yelling to reel it in. I tried. All I heard was the grinding noise the drag made as it let line out no matter how fast I reeled. My dad came up and took the pole and after about twenty minutes reeled this fish in, another large mouth. It looked about the same size as the first. My uncle arrived just in time for it to be weighed, nine pounds and fifteen ounces. My dad and my uncle both looked at me funny. My dad asked me what I was using for bait. He sounded like he was kind of mad. When I went to tell him he told me he knew.
         This time when I cast out, both my dad and my uncle cast out beside me. I did not mind. Maybe we could all catch one of those large mouths. We did not have to wait long. My dads’ bobber disappeared, and he began reeling in. It only took a minute to get it into shore. He pulled it out of the water. I asked if it was a small mouth because it was not big enough to be a large mouth. My uncle began to laugh and my dad got this angry look on his face. Before any more could be said my bobber got yanked under. My dad grabbed the pole and began reeling in. He said it felt like another one. My uncles’ bobber went under about that time. He began reeling it in. He said this one felt bigger than the first one I caught.
         My dad got my pole reeled in and sure enough another big large mouth. This one weighed in right at ten pounds. My dad said he quit and went to see if my uncle needed help. This fish had to be huge. His pole was bent so far it was wrapping back on itself. And that’s when it broke. The pole snapped off right above the last eye on the pole, but it did not break the line. My uncle quit reeling, lowered what was left of his pole until it was pointing at the water, and began to walk backwards. He walked until the fish was close enough to be scooped up by my dad. It was the ugliest thing I had ever seen. My dad said it was a carp. They were not sure how much it weighed because the scale only went to thirty pounds, and this fish weighed more than that.
         That’s when we called it a day. They threw the carp back and kept my fish. We went back to my uncles’ house and my aunt thought it was funny that I caught all those fish and my dad and my uncle had not caught a thing worthwhile. She said they should feel embarrassed because they were experienced and that was my first time fishing.
         I never got to go back and fish there again. My parents got divorced and I just never got back there again. I have not caught a thing since. Well nothing worth mentioning. I think I burned up all my good fish that first day out. Oh well, who says you cannot have fun just drowning worms.