A Fish Tale

  Some parts of this story might be true, other parts are going back over 75 years ago so I might not have it all as it was. My daddy died over 20 years ago so I can’t fact check.

 I was with my daddy and he bought a new pole and reel. The next morning at zero dark we headed to a lake up by Bishop Ca. We set up and sometime after sunup this man showed up and asked my daddy if he had a fishing license my daddy said he wasn’t fishing he was catching. He pulled his line

out of the water and said see I caught a worm. Well even as a little kid I knew that was pretty funny, but the game warden didn’t even smile. So my daddy said son pull up your line so I did. My daddy said well look at that he caught a grasshopper. No smile, but the mean man told my daddy he was going to write him a citation for no fishing license. My daddy said well the clerk at the store never mentioned a thing about a license nor was there Anything in the box the pole came in or in the box the reel it came in.

 Somewhere about here the game man got mad at my innocent daddy. I recall my daddy said “well sir you are not going to make me look bad in front of my son, he could grow up to not like game wardens”  “Your actions could affect him for the rest of his life”. After that things are a little unclear, but no citation and a lot of mumbling by the mean game man. My daddy thanked the mean man as he walked away still talking to himself about some people are just not worth educating. I knew he could not be talking about my daddy cuz he knew everything and always answered all my questions. I knew he knew more about catching fish than that mean man.

by Dude McLean