I was reading some articles lately on anglers taking their children fishing lately which started me to reminiscence about some of the times when my father first started to bring me fishing. Let me take a moment to set up my story that I am about to share with you as I think you will get a good laugh out of reading it. It's called The Mitt !!!
I started to tell my lady Christine one night after reading an article about a father that brought his son fishing for the first time and about how I would be waiting for my Dad to finish working so he could bring me fishing. Mom had a snack ready for him when he arrived home after his shift. I don't ever recall him saying that we couldn't go fishing unless he had to go to work.
The funny thing was my Dad didn't even like fishing, however since his son wanted to go he went out and purchased a canoe from the local Eatons Store. For those of you that may not know what a Eatons Store was, it was like a Sears Store. Guess I just dated myself.
During one of my stories I was telling Christine was about Dad paddling the canoe and trying to land some of the Pike that I use to catch. Dad couldn't swim and although we always had our life jackets on he would tell me not to rock the canoe as he tried to grab it without flipping the canoe and getting a hook in his hand.
While one night as I reeled my Pike in I saw Dad reach into his tackle box and put this mitt on. When I reeled it in close enough he grabbed it without any problem. I heard him say "wiggle all you want you slimy bugger I got you now". After he got the hooks out of it and released it, I asked if I could see his new fish mitt.
It was the greatest mitt for grabbing fish with. I started landing my own fish from that time on as Dad kept paddling. I tried to describe the mitt to Christine and said that I thought I had saved it after Dad passed away. I found his old tackle box which had some of his favorite lures still in it. A couple of the biggest gold Williams Wobblers, his no.1 lure, some red devils in four sizes and a couple of jointed Raps. Like I said Dad wasn't a fisherman, rather he enjoyed being with his sons on the water for a day.
In the bottom of his one tray tackle box there it was. When I showed it to Christine she started to laugh and said no wonder they didn't get anyway. I told her that maybe I would share it in an article with everyone. Christine encouraged me to write about it as it was apart of the early fishing history and I should.
I hope you enjoyed seeing the Mitt in the pictures and in the words of Bob Dylan "Times They Are Changin". Could you image the looks you would get if you reached into your livewell at a tournament weigh site wearing a mitt like that today.
Better off wearing one of the newer ones today, don't you think.
