Circa 1967
I grew up as part of a tribe of child fishermen who populated the banks of the mighty Duck River in Middle Tennessee, one of the great chigger sanctuaries in North America.
In archeological terms it was the Mud Age.
We "carp catchers" had no use for spinning reels or fancy fishing lures like they sold at our hometown Western Auto. All we needed were cane poles and night crawlers, which we dug up in the moist soil of the riverbank using grubbing hoes. Then, we'd deposit the worms into old Crisco cans filled with loose topsoil.
The carp, ugly oblong fish who sun themselves in the shallows of the free-flowing Duck River, seemed amused by our efforts. The big ones, which resembled overgrown goldfish, would glide right up to the riverbank, always careful to stay at least a pole's length away.
And there they stayed, looking at us. Unblinking. Sullen. Contemptuous.
I imagined the bubbles that sometimes gurgled up from their mouths contained angry taunts filled with fish cuss words.
My friends and I from the Riverside neighborhood in Columbia, Tenn., shared the river with grown men, who mined the Duck for catfish, using chicken livers to fish on the bottom. They sat all day on the riverbank, subsisting on a diet of Moon Pies and Marlboros, fixating on the tips of their fishing poles, alert for the slightest twitch. Some of them fished at night and left trails of Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles, like breadcrumbs, to find their way home.
We kids used worm-baited hooks that descended a few feet from red-and-white plastic bobbers. In some spots we could plop our freshly dug worms mere inches from our prey. But the carp were practiced in self-restraint, like members of the Queen's Guard at Buckingham Palace.
Most days we would eventually give up on the carp and start to fish nearer the bank for bream; which, by contrast, were hyperactive and voraciously hungry. Bream would snatch the bait instantly, hook themselves and sink the bobber - simultaneously lifting our hearts. Often, they were no bigger than the palm of our little-boy hands, but they would buck and thrash like marlin in the Gulf of Mexico.
On the rare occasion one of us did hook a carp, there was wild celebration - although to my knowledge no one ever actually ate their catch. By the way, the correct way to cook a carp is to attach it to a pine board, marinate it in melted butter mixed with onion powder, cook it in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes, detach the fish and then eat the board.
Once, a friend got so frustrated by the smug, listless carp that he decided to punish them with an M-80 - a now-banned firework about 100 times more powerful that today's firecrackers. In a highly illegal act, he tossed a lit M-80 right into the middle of the carp pool, sending a plume of water skyward and the shell-shocked carp swimming off frantically in all directions.
After that, the fishing hole was never quite the same.
Fast-forward to 2017
"Daddy, do you know how to fish?" my 10-year-old son asked, approaching me with his new rod and Zebco 33 reel, an early 11th-birthday gift from his aunt.
"I've been fishing a time or two," I said. "We need to put a sinker on that line so you can practice casting in the backyard."
"Won't the line get stuck in the trees?" he said.
"Maybe, but don't you think there are trees on the riverbank, too?" I said. "You need to practice casting between them."
"Good point," he said.
"Where do I get bait?" he continued.
"In the ground," I said. "Start digging."
"Yuck. I don't want real worms," he said, frowning. "I want some of those plastic ones in a bag."
"I don't think they'll work very well," I said, imagining him bank-fishing for bluegill with a worm the size of a Ballpark frank.
My sister has promised to take him to the Riverpark to fish off the pier on the day after his birthday. They want me to come along to bait their hooks.
Fifty years after hanging up his cane pole, I guess the carp-catcher will return to the riverbank.
The fish, I hear, are worried.
To that, I have just one thing to say: Carp diem, little friends!