Fishing with Edgar

I walked up the desk at the retirement center and mumbled incoherently the way I often do around strangers in such instances. I'd certainly starve if I had to make a living as a salesman. I muttered something about writing a book on fishing the river and wanting to talk to someone about how it used to be. The lady just stared at me for a long time. I couldn't tell if she hadn't heard me or was thinking of calling the cops. Then suddenly she was in motion, "yeah come on" she said over her shoulder and led me down a hallway to a room. she introduced me to Edgar and left. I just kind of stood there for a second or two and it took a few momments to explain to Edgar I just wanted to talk fishing and wasn't trying to sell him something. After feeling each other out and trying to find a connection in that way country people do when they first meet, we established that Edgars father had certainly worked with my grandfather at Peters Cartridge Co in Kings Mills and Edgar relaxed and began to talk fishing. Edgar grew up on Shawhan Road above South Lebanon and had fished the river off and on for three quarters of a century. He said his earliest memories of fishing the river were tagging along with his older brother Earl and his cousin Bob catfishing at night. Edgar had a small radio by his bed and must listen to country music because he said, "you know that song where that fellas wife leaves him for fishing? Well Bob sounded just like that fella in the song...aaww lookie there I got a bite". According to Edgar they fished with large stout poles made of cane they bought st Brownings Hardware in South Lebanon. The reel and the guides were then taped to the cane with old fashioned electrical cloth tape.(friction tape) He said he didn't fish on those trips and he thought looking back they let him tag along so he could gather firewood. He still remembers the excitement of being on the river around the fire at night back then. Edgar said they went to a nearby field and picked field corn and boiled it in the minnow bucket over the fire. I asked him if they caught any big fish and he said "God almighty they caught some whoppers", that some of it may have been his youth but the "yellowcats" looked as long as him. That they used chub minnows for bait and also set jingle lines up and down the river from sycamore branches. I asked him if they baited the jingle lines with chubs and he said mostly but they also used nightcrawlers and crawdads on the jingle lines but you had to bait with nightcrawlers right at dark to keep the little fish from pecking them off. He said they caught chubs with a cane pole from the creek up from Stubbs Mills (bigfoot run) and from Hall's Creek. That just up from the river was a big pothole in Halls Creek they could always catch bait in. (there's one there now too, though the creek is dry right now). Edgar said they would go down the hill on a wagon path and cut across the riverbottom to just below Stubbs Mills. Here they often kept a skiff and would gig fish by lantern light. Edgar said a man he called Mr. Brent would come up from Cincinnati to Morrow on the train and would buy bait from Edgar and borrow the skiff. That just below the Stubbs Mills bridge was a small hole in that shallow section and Mr Brent would anchor the skiff and fish minnows for bass and channelcat in that hole. Mr Brent also sometimes would drive up from Cincinnati and would arrive in a coat, hat, and a tie. He would never take off the tie till he had bought bait. Never, he said you could bank on it. He would buy his bait, take off that tie and open one of the beers he had in a bucket with ice in his trunk and go fishing. The nurse stuck her head in check on Edgar and said something about not staying too long but Edgar cut her off, "dammit woman can't you see I've got company, get the hell out". I promised her I would leave soon. When she left Edgars expression softened and he said she never would let him cuss till he was dying. I was at a loss for words at that but it didn't matter, Egdar jumped right back into his story. He said they had a big homemade wire trap that they caught crawdads in using rotten fish for bait. That people always loved eating the craws but he always smelled the rotten fish in his head and couldn't eat them. I asked him about spinning tackle and he said he remembers that Dupont was the only company that made monofilament and he owned a mitchell 300 and a grey cardinal with a drag on the top of the reel housing in the back. That he still has the 300 in his son's garage rafters if it hasn't been thrown away, "best damn reel ever made". He said the river was deeper then because of the dams. That you could waterski below South Lebanon. "Try that now and that shallow water above the new bridge will rip your moter right off". He said when he got older they caught alot of bass above Stubbs Mills on C P Swing spinners and Pork Rinds. And that his brother owned a Bass Oreno and he remembers wanting one badly. Edgar vividly remembers the river flooding and said you could wade neck deep "where the smorgasbord is now".( Duffs smorgasbord has been closed for years.) Edgar coughed loudly and seemed tired and I made up an excuse to leave but Edgar made me promise to return. "Nobody in this damn place fishes".