Fishing with barb-less hooks
By Ernie Mitchell
HTF Columnist
Tucked back in the hills and hollers of Southern Indiana is a remnant childhood memory I call Fall Creek Farm. It was the home of my mother and grandmother and grandfather and has been my personal haunt since 1955 when my grandparents left the farm and moved into town.
Part of its uniqueness, especially to an ex commercial traveling man like me, was that it was nestled at the end of a gravel road. Regardless of how long and how many miles you traveled to get there, once you arrived, unless you wanted to take a walk in the hillsides that surround the back pasture, the journey was over. I was once told that many years before my grandmother and grandfather bought the land in 1929 and built the house and barn that a road ran past the house and through the pasture and creek and continued through woods to connect to the outside world. By the time I started roaming the pasture and surrounding hills the old road bed had completely disappeared - forever reclaimed by sycamores, hickories and chinaberries.
Throughout my professional career there were many times, while on late night flights to far from home destinations that I would find myself staring out the window, listening for the whippoorwills, daydreaming and digressing back to the summer 1952 and carefree barefoot treks to the creek in granddad’s pasture.
It was in the summer of 52 that I met James Teague or “Tiggy” as everyone called him. Tiggy lived about a mile down the road and was ten-years old. I was only seven therefore Tiggy was much wiser to the ways of the woods. He not only knew where all the good fishing holes were and what bait to use - he also had barbed fish hooks that he secretly let me use. Yeah, that’s right, I said barbed fish hooks!
You see, my grandmother figured a seven year-old didn’t have any business with store-bought barbed fish hooks so she made what she called “pin” hooks out of long sewing straight pins for me to use. When I wanted to go fishing down at the creek she would send me out the back door with a piece of bacon for bait and my homemade willow fishing pole, complete with homemade “barbless” hooks. Until I met Tiggy my fishing exploits weren’t anything to write home about but since I didn’t have anything to compare it with I was as happy as Captain Ahab angling for Moby- Dick.
Tiggy changed all that. He had hooks that the fish couldn’t wiggle off of! He knew what bait to use and where to find it and most importantly, he knew where to find the fish. He also knew other important stuff, like what snakes to avoid and how to handle catfish and snapping turtles. He even taught me how
to make a fish stringer out of a long hooked stick. Grandma got a little suspicious when I started bringing home large stringers of fish. Suspecting she would be suspicious and not wanting to get busted for breaking her barbed hook rule I always tied one of her pin hooks on my fishing pole line before returning home.
One day, Tiggy took me to his secret fishing hole way “way” back in the woods. It was so packed with hungry fish that we both resorted to swapping his store-bought barbed hooks for grandmothers pin hooks so we could easily let the fish get away after we tired of toying with them.
A few years ago I learned that Tiggy had passed away. Every once-in-a-while, in the quiet hours of the evening I think about him and those carefree days so many years ago. When I do I can’t help but wonder if he isn’t still back there at that secret fishing hole with his willow pole and silly grin, living it up, pulling ‘em in.
We all need mentors in our lives. Learning everything the hard way, through trial and error, is too slow, too expensive and too painful. Although Tiggy was only three years older than me, because of his experience my association with him catapulted me ahead of my peers by three years in just one summer. In the business world we can’t afford to fish for Moby-Dick with barb-less hooks and the wrong bait. To survive we must stay abreast of the latest technology and to thrive we must stay ahead of the learning curve.
The quest for profitable and reliable marketing and sales know-how can be a treacherous quest for business owners. The internet is chock full of charlatans and hucksters. In the future, I hope to be of assistance in helping you discover and profit from the newest, most reliable and economical eCommerce marketing and sales tools.
Ernie Mitchell, Moose Lake Hill, Orr MN, © All Rights Reserved 2010.
