Fishing tales galore and so much more

         I enjoy relaxing in the Lazy Boy chair and watching old television shows. The other day I was watching the first episode of the Andy Griffith Show, which aired on Oct. 3, 1960.
      In that show, Andy invites Aunt Bee to Mayberry to help raise Opie after the former housekeeper, Rose, gets married.
       In the early going, Opie struggles to accept Aunt Bee, as he missed the way Rose did things.
         Rose would play ball and fish with him and he wanted Aunt Bee to do the same. It wasn’t Aunt Bee’s thing. So, Andy tries to teach her how to play ball and fish, all with no success.
       They all go fishing together and Aunt Bee is holding her baited fishing line out of the water. When Opie questions what she is doing, Andy explains that where Aunt Bee is from, that is how people fish.
        So Opie and Andy encourage Aunt Bee to put her line in the water and when she does, she catches a fish.
         That leds to Aunt Bee deciding to leave until Opie realizes how much he needs her. It was the beginning of a family bond that touched hearts for generations.
Watching that show brought back a lot memory of camping and fishing trips I went on with my folks.
         My dad loved to fish and after my parents were married, they would spend most summer weekends at Lake Oologah northeast of Tulsa.
      My dad loved to fish off the rocky banks below the dam. I remember as a youngster watching Vietnamese families using cane poles and catching fish by the basketfuls.
         I would sleep in the back seat of my dad’s 1959 Chevrolet Impala, which later became my car in high school. On one fishing trip, I heard a commotion in the middle of the night. I learned later that my mom had gotten up and found a big snake hanging from a tree at our campsite.
        One of the most memorable fishing trip was in the summer of 1969 (not the Bryan Adams song).
        I was age 10. My mom was pregnant with my brother, Tom, who was born in October that year.
         We were camping at Grand Lake northeast of Tulsa at a campsite near the water.
        Dad and I went fishing and I snagged big ole fish. I got so excited that I started jumping up and down and then dropped my fishing pole before reeling in the fish.
        I was thankful as my dad reached down and grabbed my pole to keep the fish from getting away.
         Dad helped me reel the fish in, which was a four-pound carp.
        That’s not my favorite fish to eat as it’s boney and tough. But my mom gutted and skinned the fish and we all ate it.
         I couldn’t have been happier to enjoy fish and fried potatoes cooked in an iron skillet on a Coleman camp stove.
        Many years we camped and fished at Greenleaf Lake, a man-made lake near Braggs, Okla. Braggs is about a 12 miles from Muskogee, Okla.
         I’m sure you’ve heard the Merle Haggard song, “Okie from Muskogee.”
        The lake featured a heated dock, as many Oklahoma lakes had back in the day. Fisherman could enjoy fishing inside a bait dock. Some of the featured bait shops sold pizzas, deli sandwiches and cold drinks.
      For a few dollars, you could fish on the dock all day. On one particular trip, I caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 crappie.
          I cleaned some of them and we ate them for supper.
When I got older, I used to fish a lot with my friend, Rob. Everyone called him Rob Bob and he knew how to catch fish.
        His family had a large pond southeast of Tulsa near the town of Coweta. Rob’s dad had a 17-foot boat that folded in half. Large bolts with rubber plugs and wing nuts were used to seal the boat once it was open. We’d row out into the lake and fish.
         I caught my biggest bass, a 3.5 beauty, in that pond. That area now is a golf course.
I brought the fish home and cleaned it and my mom cooked it for me along with some fried potatoes.
      We used to swim there some until the time I got out of the water and saw a big snake swim past. That was end of that.
       Rob had an uncle who had an A-Frame house on Grand Lake.
       We’d fish off the family boat dock several times during the summer and enjoyed a deli sandwich and cold Pepsi’s.
        Those were some great trips and times of fellowship.
      When I worked for the newspaper in Tulsa, there was a fellow I worked with that lived north of town. He had a huge pond and I often fished there and would catch some nice bass. And when I was in college at the University of Missouri-Columbia, a family near where I lived let me fish their pond. I always caught a mess of fish.
        I have lots of great memories of fishing good times.
         I’m looking forward to trying my hand at fishing again. It’s been way too long.
        Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.