Just before noon, Mr. Hardy, from Milledgeville, came though the screen door of the store with his usual big smile. “Good morning, Ms Humphries; how’s the fishing been lately?” The exchange of polite conversation continued for a few moments before Mr. Hardy asked for a 10 cent slice of cheese. Mamma raised the top from the round wooden container holding a big hoop of red rind cheese and sliced a wedge , then dropped it on the scales on top of a piece of wax paper. She said, “That’s 12 cents worth, Mr. Hardy. Will that be okay.” “Sure”, he responded. Mr. Hardy gathered several big penny wheel cookies from the huge jar sitting on the counter beside the cash register. Now, I’d like a can of deviled ham. Mamma walked over to the shelf and picked up a small can of the salty, creamy spread, brought it back and sat it on the counter beside the cheese and small sack of penny wheels crackers. “Add a coke to that and a fishing permit for the afternoon and that will be all. How much do I owe you, Ms. Humphries?” Mamma responded, “Oh, you don’t owe me anything for the fishing this afternoon. Just come back again when you can spend the day.” The total for lunch came to 37 cents. Mr. Hardy politely closes the screen door as he leaves and walk back to his car and had lunch, spreads on the hood on his new Chrysler.

No sooner than Mr. Hardy leave, George, a resident of East Macon, drives up to the gas tank in front of the store. George was a regular Saturday fisherman at Myrick’s Mill. To the roof of his car above the drivers door was attached pole holders and about a dozen long cane fishing poles, rigged and ready for fishing. George, too, came in to buy a fishing permit, some fish hooks, lead, a coke and some cigarette papers. George rolled his own cigarettes. You could tell that, not only by his asking for cigarette paper, but also because you could see the tag and string from the Bull Durham tobacco bag hanging from his bib overall pocket. The string with tag at the end always hung on the outside of the pocket, not because people wanted to advertise Bull Durham, but because it made pulling the bag of tobacco from the overall pocket a lot easier when the string was readily accessible.

Mr. Hardy finished his lunch and put on his long hip waders for wading the edge of the pond. He was one of the few people who deliberately fished for bass, more often called trout, by casting with artificial lures. Mr. Hardy had the demeanor and manner of an educated and refined sort of gentleman. I always enjoyed talking to him when he was getting ready to fish because I got to see all those lures in his big green tackle box. There were Heddon Lucky 13s, a Creek Chub Minnow, and several Johnson Silver Spoons. He used a short steel casting rod and Pleuger casting reel filled with cloth braided line. I came to realize that Mr. Hardy was a classic gentleman bass fisherman. He consistently caught some of the biggest bass and always brought them by the store to be weighed. He wouldn’t bother to weigh the small ones, so most of the fish laid on the scales were from 8 to 12 pounds. He seemed real pleased when his fish were over 10 pounds. Standing at the back door of the store, Mamma took my pictures with one of them.

George untied the mass of poles from the roof of his car, got 2 buckets from the truck and took his place on the east side of mill pond. He seldom fished the big lake, but preferred to fish the small mill pond. Some hooks were baited with a big gob of worms, while others were baited with shiners (large minnows). The many poles were strategically placed at intervals along the bank and secured by pushing the sharpened butt into the ground, then further supported with a forked stick to keep the tip of the pole up and out over the water. George sat on a bucket about mid point the string of a dozen set-out poles and watched the big red and white bobbers floating beyond the tips of each pole. Doug Larson once said, “If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles.” Considering the number of poles stretched out along the bank, George was on his way to creating that shortage.

Occasionally, George would jump and run to rescue one of his poles as the bobber completely disappeared under the water and the tip of the pole began to bend and jerk. With a long slow tug on the pole a large blackfish was finally dragged onto the bank. George splits his tail with a sharp knife to “bleed him”, After the fish was thoroughly bled, it went onto a stringer. The scene would be repeated throughout the afternoon until one or more stringers were full.

Fishermen at Myrick’s Mill were characters as varied as their poles and lures. Yet, common threads ran through through all of them. They were fishing, in a good mood, happy to be where they were at that moment, and enjoying life.

You know? Doug Larson just might be onto something.

©2003 - William C. Humphries, Jr.