MY FII^ST BOAT RIDE 

 [ice he is telling icie truth before he dare open 

 his mouth about fishing, Just because my 

 pencil happened to slip once when I was de- 

 scribing a fishing trip on the Cottenwood River 

 in Northern /Minnesota many years ago is no 

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

 hard enough, i am and always have been a 

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

 boyhood. 1 began my first fishing in a small 

 creek that ran near our cabin. Ay first fishing 

 outfit consisted of a red v/illow pole, a shoestring 

 line and a bent pin for a hook. Grasshoppers, 

 grub v/orms and angle v/orms v/ere the bait. 

 Chubs and sun-fish were the kind of fish I 

 caught, if any. Sometimes I would 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 was eight years old Father took 

 me wrth himi to the Kankakee. We were fish- 

 ing from the bank at North Bend, which I have 

 mentioned before Whilst we were fishing F\r. 



63 



