Bait casting

I don’t remember what age my brother Bob and I were when our dad took us fishing. It was quite young, and we used cane poles for equipment. I remember we went to Garvin Park, which was also the home to Bosse Field the local baseball park. If you have seen a League of their own, it is the brick baseball field. At that time Garvin Park had two lakes, I’m not sure what happened to the smaller one, but it isn’t there today. Anyway, we would sit on the bank and catch bluegills and release them. Sometimes mom would show up with egg salad sandwiches to eat.

When we were ten and eleven the local Jaycees had a learn to bait cast training session going on at one end of Garvin Lake. They were teaching kids how to use a rod and reel to fish. There were two test courses which consisted of floating hoops out in the lake. The hoops were about the size of a hula hoop and tethered out in the lake. Each course consisted of ten hoops anchored at twenty feet out to forty feet out.

The object was to cast a 5/8 ounce plug out and try to land it in the hoops. Bob and I waited our turn and then were instructed on how to do it, and the make ten casts trying to hit in all the hoops. Bob was in line on one course, and I was on the other. I don’t remember how many practice casts we were given and then shoot for score. It had to be some kind of miracle, but I had a perfect score. The Jaycees were stunned. Then they announced that there was a perfect score on the other course also. Guess what, it was Bob.

There is no explanation for it, but we won our first rods and reels that day, Mom and dad couldn’t believe it. We were a little shocked too.

We both continued to fish, and both were remarkedly accurate with bait casting a rod and reel.