Going Fishing

Center Hill Lake

Construction of the dam is a part of my early memory: 1945, I can remember a group of men coming to my grandfather's house in Gordonsville for some first aid! It seems that the group had "been-a-drankin" prior to attempting to cross the dam. Permanent guard rails had not been installed, and the driver was engrossed in the sight of so much water when he veered to the right a little too far and proceeded through the temporary barrier to roll the old Ford over and over down the earthworks side of the dam.

The cars of that day were heavy gauge steel bodies over formidable steel frames. By the time the doors were wrenched off the occupants were probably attempting to crawl under the seats. With the doors removed, the fenders severely rounded, and covered inside and out in dirt and mud, retrieval was questionable.

This unplanned voyage had taken its toll: All three were pretty well sobered up by the time the car came to rest at the side of the river, approximately 350 feet below the top of the dam. And one of the passengers had split his forearm from the wrist to his elbow.

Someone had seen the mishap and rushed the victims fifteen miles to Dr. William Barton Dalton's house in Gordonsville. Dr. Dalton, my Grandpa, proceeded to use a clamps somewhat akin to a "hog ring" about every two inches along the cut. Then he sewed the fissure together between the clamps. All this was not a pretty sight, but I watched most of it until I was shooed away by concerned aunts and parents. The three daredevils survived to live other days.

My Grandpa was the archetypical white haired, country doctor. In his youth he had a shock of brilliant red hair and a red handlebar moustache: A dashing fellow to say the least. The Daltons, William Barton and wife Adi Bertram, with eight children in tow, had moved to Gordonsville floating their possessions down the Obed and Cumberland Rivers from Lillydale to Gordonsville Tennessee. Their’s was a happy household that revered the local Methodist Church, education for the eight children, and provision of high quality medical service to Southern Smith County.

Grandpa served as a leader of the medical community in Tennessee in the early 1900's. Oftentimes he was paid in part in produce or livestock for birthing babies and calming fevered brows. My mother had a son, Buddy, aged nine when she experienced a specific discomfort that had been diagnosed as a possible tumor. But after describing her “tumor” to her father, he said, ”Go home: You are pregnant!”

Going fishing with my dad during the late forties and early fifties was a two day ordeal. The afternoon before the fishing trip we would drive "up the creek" to a settlement known as Pleasant Shade to seine minnows. If a fishing trip was to be productive one was required to have a good stock of live, Tuffy minnows.

We seined minnows on many occasions with varying degrees of success. A few trips were memorable when we had to seine a deep hole filled with half-grown bass and perch jumping high in the air avoiding our net. One time my dad stepped on a rusty wire that pierced his rubber boot right into his instep to a depth of about two inches. The glass iodine stick went all the way in when I administered it. We went right on with our planned trip. He suffered the injury without comment because a day fishing was not to be altered.

Preparations for one trip involved the usual seining trip to Sanderson's Branch. Upon arriving we couldn't see anything but the black creek bottom. We decided to give the net one pull anyway just in case there may be a stray minnow about. What we got was a seine absolutely full of beautiful Tuffys! The bottom had been covered with minnows so that we only thought we were looking at the flat rocks below.

The minnows had to be preserved that night by immersing them in a flowing stream near home then quickly retrieved the following morning. We arose before dawn and collected the minnows. I placed the bucket between my feet and another within easy reach.

Quick access was necessary since we were required to stop at every ford of every roadside stream to freshen the bait water. With even as many as four or five stops during the hour and fifteen minute drive attrition would be great.

The drive was always long in the '51 Chevy and the water sloshed over my feet, but in all the excitement nothing mattered. The only word that comes to mind when attempting to describe the feeling within a youngster when participating in a real, lake, fishing trip with a boat and outboard motor and everything is THRILLING!!

As we neared the lake a fluttering feeling arose in my chest. It was fed by my dad's proclamations about the day, the weather, the water and/or the stories he passed with our usual companion, Bridges Read. Uncle Bridges was a character who loved stories and, jokes, and me. I loved him too without knowing it until later. (It was customary for favorite non-family members to be called “Uncle” or “Aunt” pronounced ‘ain’t’ in Middle Tennessee.)

Uncle Bridges was a “Dough Boy” in World War I and survived in the trenches when “The Hun” (Germans) attacked with chlorine gas. Anyone who has had even a remote experience with tear gas will never forget the occasion. The effects of a chlorine gas attack resulted in Uncle Bridges becoming unable to perform strenuous tasks even after a long period of convalescence.

The gas caused extreme pain for months and even years, and the only treatment for the symptoms was morphine. Uncle Bridges had become addicted to morphine and was covertly ridiculed for it. I only knew how Uncle Bridges delighted me with his sense of great good humor and his apparent love for me.

Forever it seemed we’d be winding our way along the Caney Fork River then suddenly climbing up the side of dam. Sight of the dam was and was awesome and terrible! Suddenly, as we broke out on top into the bright, fully risen sunshine there it was....... ENDLESS sun splashed water. My heart leapt when I saw it! Usually the sky would be a deep vivid blue; the sun sparkling the surface. As we drove on, the view of the water would be blocked for long seconds by trees growing along the road, but in another instant there it was, so blue, so vast, so exciting! I could not get enough!

It always became impossible to take a deep breath. There would something like a tingle or an itch in my body that would make my chin quiver as if I were freezing. If I tried to speak the words became a giggle with an imbedded hiccup. The air would rush in, and the words would get caught in my throat. So, most of the time I just tried to be quiet, do what I was told, and to stay out of the way while the heavy, wooden, rented boat was loaded and the outboard motor manhandled onto the transition.

Once underway my awareness of everything would progress outward from my seat in the boat: From attempting to steady its rocking while Uncle Bridges pushed off and got aboard, to the bow wave and the glint of the sun on it. Then there was the breeze and the sound of the outboard and the smell of its blue-white, smoky exhaust; then the froth on the wake as we picked up speed. I would look back and wonder why the stern was so low and I was sitting up so high. It always amazed me that the water wasn't fast enough to sink the rear of the boat. And when we slowed to a stop I watched for the wave behind to cascade into the back. But it never did.

Finally the craft would plane off and we would really be making time, or so it seemed. The 18 horsepower Johnson outboard made the boat positively glide on the lake surface. That old wooden boat with all the gear, and the three of us aboard probably never got up to 20 miles per hour, but it was exhilarating.

The wind was cool and the sun searing bright, and at this moment when the sensations would be too exciting to endure, dad would lean forward and open the home-made minnow bucket to assess their condition. I calmly watched but my thoughts were, "Oh NO!: What if we ran over something or ran into another boat, or capsized or something while he's looking in those buckets?” Well, we seldom saw another boat and never hit anything of any size. And my distance perception abilities had not matured.

Finally we would be fishing: It would usually be mid-morning, the wind disappearing as we'd pulled into a cove where willow trees stood in the water with tops above the surface. We stuck minnows onto hooks and dropped them down beside the boat, and everyone grew absolutely silent...watching the red and white floats...for a long time...............a very long time. The once warm sunshine became hot, and the refreshing breeze was no longer evident.

There would be an occasional wave against the side of the boat and perhaps on the shore nearby there was a ground hog or small gray squirrel to watch. Often there would be large birds of prey, either large hawks or an eagle and always buzzards to spot.

Soon my perceptions would turn back to myself with thoughts like: "This plank I'm sitting on is hard and hurts my posterior. I wonder when we eat lunch, and what will it be, and can I have a whole Coke by myself. I wonder what would happen if I dangled my hand in the water or maybe my foot would be better. Where am I going to Pee?"

Usually a few bass or crappie would be on the stringer when dad would announce that it was time for lunch. "Oh Boy, Oh Boy", my heart would leap because there would always be those Devil's Food Cookies that had a chocolate center covered completely by a white layer then a solid layer of chocolate! - My Favorite -!

But what came before the cookies was always a mystery. I remembered Vienna Sausage or Baloney (is it really spelled Bologna?) from past trips, but for my most memorable lake-lunch dad had brought yellow cheese warmed by the sun, a pack of saltines, a small jar of pickles, cookies for dessert, Cokes and two cans of Opossum Sardines: TALL BOYS!

I wasn't sure just what sardines were, and I had never tried one.

I looked closely when the can was opened and found that they were fish: Fish without heads that were too large to use for bait and too small to keep. They looked gross and strange and crumbled when manipulated onto a cracker with the large blade of a scout knife.

They were packed in oil and looked positively ...(What's the appropriate word here? What would a 10 year old use to describe the sight of his first Opossum Sardine on a saltine?) ...DESPICABLE!!! (That's probably not THE EXACT WORD, but...) AND, dad expected me to eat that!! Well, I ate them and did pretty well. No gagging or retching or violent regurgitations or anything. As it turned out, what little taste they had wasn't all that bad. However Opossum Sardines aren't a household staple to this day, but they often appear, somehow mysteriously, on fishing trips! That old pocket knife is now in my tackle box.

We would usually catch a respectable number of two pound or smaller large mouth bass or a good number of crappie. On a few trips we "LOADED THE BOAT", or "WE SLAYED 'EM TODAY". (These are nautical terms familiar to all Mid-South fishermen.) I even got my picture in the Nashville Tennessean Newspaper one time with a string of bass. And I remember the greatest trip of all was one were we had a stringer of crappie of twenty fish and weighed forty-two pounds. That's what you call a “Stringer of Slabs"!

Going fishing has changed considerably since those days in the ‘40's and ‘50's; and I can’t say for the better. I know that you can’t go back to simpler times, but in my mind I’ll be fishing on a quiet Center Hill cove with my dad and Uncle Bridges Read.