More Fishing

Another place that we went fishing was a place we called "Little Niagara." We would ride our bikes about a mile away from home to a place we could hide the bikes and walk over some girders that were across the river.  The river ran behind the Borden Company and we could walk all along it. There was a well worn path, even though we rarely ran into any others kids there.  There was one place where the river widened out to a little pool area, and we could get close to the shore.  That was where we fished (and also started fires, but that's another story). One day I caught a 22 inch fish!  I put it on my stringer, carried it back to my bike, and rode home. After I measured it and had my picture taken, it's gills were still moving so I put it in a wash tub in the back yard and it started swimming around. The damn thing was still alive!  When I showed my dad, he told me it was a carp, a bottom feeder that wasn't good to eat.  My dreams of a good fish dinner went down in flames.  The next day two of my brothers killed it by stabbing it with screwdrivers.  I was really mad at them because I was proud of catching such a big fish.  Then we buried it in the garden.  I'm pretty sure my oldest brother's dog dug it up, because it was gone the next day and the dog smelled like dead fish for at least a week.