Ratted Out by a Grand-Brat, Noodles and Jugs

As I was driving with two of my Grand-brats the middle one let out a scream. It seems he thought I ran a stop sign and was distressed. I told him I had stopped and…then I was interrupted by the five-year-old, “Faux Pa, you slowed down but you didn’t really stop.”  What could I say to that? I’m just glad there wasn’t a uniformed officer standing at the door.

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

Lately we’ve been learning how to sail a boat. I have to be careful about how I say that. Here in Southside sale and sell are often pronounced the same. I’ve been selling for over half a century but the sailing is new and the sailboat is not for sale.

Last week while we were sailing I noticed a bunch of short pieces of pool noodles floating in the lake. A closer examination revealed they had fishing lines on them.  Way back when I was in my single digits I did a little fishing with my grandfather. You should understand my grandfather was a purist. Fly fishing was the only way to fish. Tying his own flies was the only way to get a fly. He even built his own fly rods.

He could spend all day on the bank of a river in the pouring rain, never even get a nibble and have a great time.

Fortunately for me my father wasn’t a fisherman and he believed in results.  When he was younger he would “borrow” some dynamite from his father to go fishing. When dynamite is detonated under water it stuns the fish, which then float to the surface, just waiting to be scooped up.  When I was in my teens and someone mentioned fishing at the beach, he went to the net store and had a 300-yard gill net built. In his (and my) opinion, if the goal is to get fish then GET LOTS of fish. My maternal grandfather was probably rolling in his grave but LOTS of fish beats not getting a nibble anytime.

Jug fishing was tying a line to a jug and letting it float until you caught something. When the jug starts moving there is a fish on it. That way you can have dozens of lines in the water and watch all of them OR leave them for a while and come back to them.

In the interest of accuracy I did the cane pole thing a few times and set out some catfish jugs a few times but I never seriously fished. When I built our pond I stocked it and managed it for fish.  The only fish I’ve ever caught there is when showing a grand-brat how to do it and the fish in my pond just can’t wait to get caught.

In any case the pool noodles in the lake were intriguing. I just happened to have several hundred pool noodles in inventory and one of the boats I bought had a box filled with hooks, weights and lines. As Dr. Seuss wrote in The Lorax, “With great skillful skill and with great speedy speed I took all the stuff and built”… a noodle line. Within 20 minutes I had a dozen made and was almost finished with another two dozen with a total cost of less than fifty cents each.

Then I checked the fishing laws and bought my first fishing license. Always the optimist, I also bought a fillet knife.  The next day we went to the lake. While we were sailing I dropped the “jug-lines” in the water. Upon returning I checked them.  By the end of the day the score was Averett- 0, Fish- 6: stolen baits, two broken lines and one stolen jug. I must have a little of my grandfather in me, I had a great time and caught nothing.

My next project is to find some cheap traditional fishing rods, lures, dynamite and other fishing stuff and trying fishing the traditional way.