Yesterday I spent a lovely day with three friends from high school. Lunch, shopping, walking around Bradley Fair, and visiting. Barb, Val, and Susan.

My conversation with Barb turned to fishing. I had read on facebook that one of my female cousins in Texas had spent a weekend at a Women’s Official Fishing Organization Retreat. Pictures of several fish caught, big smiles from the participants, evidence of good times all around.

Well, long ago and far away in the outer reaches of Ottawa County Kansas, there was a mini version of a “teen girls’ unofficial fishing disorganized retreat”. This involved just three friends, Barb, Elaine and myself. Probably age 17 at the time. We would be having a slumber party of sorts in Elaine’s family’s vacant old farmhouse. Somewhere east of our hometown, probably in the vicinity of Oak Hill.

Could I locate this house today? Not on your life. But Elaine showed us the way. We were armed with snacks and fishing gear. Fun times ahead.

Across the road from this lovely old vacant but somewhat furnished home was a pond. We would fish. Yes we would. In fact, we determined that we would get up early the next day and fish until we caught something, then take our catch back to the house and cook it for breakfast.

Did we sleep that night? Again, not on your life. Barb and I were reminiscing today at lunch and it was the first I realized that I was not the only one who did not sleep one wink. Terms like “creepy” and “spooky” were mentioned.

But we headed across the road as the sun was coming up, armed with our fishing gear. Which consisted of my beloved fishing rod with open-faced Zebco reel that was a gift from my daddy. Barb thinks that she and Elaine just had poles, string, hooks, and bobbers. And worms for bait. Pretty primitive set up.

Let me tell you the fish were sleeping in and totally uninterested in the worms our hooks were baited with. We circled the pond repeatedly with no bites.

And then, I had a bite. A powerful bite. My bobber was quickly submerged and it was clear that there was a monstrous fish on my hook. I yelled out “I have a fish” and started reeling the fish in. But the fish was too large for reeling with my beloved Zebco reel. Barb and Elaine came running to help, pulling on the line while I took the pole and tried to drag it and the fish back on to the shore.

Not to be.

Barb then waded out into the water where the fish was flailing around and tried to pick it up and carry it to shore while it still was attached to the hook. She moved it just a short distance with her hands and then just kind of shoved it onto the shore with her feet while Elaine and I continued to tug away with the pole and line.

I mean…. Isn’t this how real fishermen operate?

It was truly a very large fish. One of those slick skinned no scales type fish. Catfish or something? We did not know. Nor did we care. We’d just caught breakfast and we were tired and hungry.

Time for cleaning the fish. As it turned out, we were totally unprepared. A knife would have been nice. The kitchen in the house had a steak knife. But we thought removing the fish’s head was needed. A steak knife would be pretty ineffective. We searched around and finally found an ax somewhere outdoors.

So we chopped the head off with an ax. 🤭🤪 And somehow removed the skin with the steak knife. The goal was to end up with filets to fry in the skillet on the stove. Using Crisco and flour that we found in the kitchen. I doubt that these filets would win any Food Network Chopped contests, but we claimed they were tasty. Starvation was averted.

There was laughter, big time laughter. We felt like we’d accomplished our goal and wow were we excited to get back to town.

But wait….we didn’t really have a fish to show off.

So. We took the chopped off head and headed back home. I knew my dad would be so very excited to hear our fish story. And he was. “Bunny, that fish must have weighed at least 8 or 9 pounds from the looks of its head.” Barb’s dad was the junior high principal. He was in his office at the school. Of course, we took that stinky old dirty head right into his office. We quickly told him the story, through laughter. Then we headed around town showing anyone who was willing to look at a dead dirty fish head.

Do you think we’ll ever forget the day we caught the fish? Not on your life.