MY FIRS r BOAT RIDE 

 tice he is telling the truth before he dare ope^n 

 his mouth about fishing, Just becciuse my 

 pencil happened to slip once yrmn 1 was de-- 

 scribing a fishing trip on the Cottenv/ood River 

 in Northern /Ainnesota many years ago is no 

 sign 1 cannot tell the nude, naked truth if 1 try 

 hard enough. I am and alv/ays have been a 

 'dyed" in the v/ool crank on fishing ever since 

 boyhood. 1 began my first fishing in a sm.all 

 creek that ran near our cabin. /Ay first fishing 

 outfit consisted of a red willow pole, a shoestring 

 line and a bent pin for a hook. Grasshoppers, 

 grub worms and angle worms were the bait. 

 Chubs and sun-fish v/ere the kind of fish I 

 caught, if any. Sometimes 1 v/ould go fishing 

 at night for cat-fish, and do very well until that 

 big swamp owl would hoot "Who are you," and 

 that would end my fishing for that night. The 

 summer that 1 v/as eight years old Father took 

 me wrth him to the Kankakee. V/e were fish- 

 ing from the bank at North Bend, which I have 

 mentioned before Whilst v/e were fishing Ar. 



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