I was born near Wooster, Ohio into a very poor Amish family in 1967. My parents got a car and electricity when I was 2 and left the Amish, ending up slightly south of Middlebury, Indiana. We lived in various rental houses while my mom had more children. Eventually there were eight of us children, I was number four in the middle. My parents were both educated in Amish schools, my mother completing the eighth grade twice before she was old enough to quit, my dad having the educational equivalent of going half way through the fourth grade. Due to working with their backs instead of their brains my parents never made much money, and there were eight of us children to feed. My dad built his own house when I was about seven years old. We didn’t have siding on our house, just tar paper held on with wood slats, an embarrassment every time the school bus pulled up to it. Things were tough. It was in this environment that I slowly built a world inside myself, escaping there frequently.

          There are a few advantages to being poor. One is you don’t buy store bought toys. Our toys were blocks of wood and empty thread spools. This leads to developing a very vivid imagination. Our wood blocks became gas stations and cars, corrals for horses and so on. Our imagination was applied to other things as well. I remember when my dad would get a “Field & Stream” magazine from a friend and we would read it. Filled with exotic places like Michigan and tackle that we would never be able to afford, our imagination took us to those places with that gear and we had more fun than reality. I remember wanting to make it more real and one Saturday when my parents were both working we got some pins and thread from mom’s sewing box. We cut fishing poles out of trees and then headed for the neighbor’s pond, asking permission first which was readily granted. Man did we have fun until we got tired of the tiny little stunted bluegills. This was the beginning of my life as a fishermen.

Reading through the outdoor magazines I dreamt of real fishing gear. I knew it was beyond our means but I imagined it was mine anyway. One day I received a pamphlet in the mail from a greeting card company that asked me to sell boxes of greeting cards for them in exchange for prizes. It was in the fall with Christmas coming up and I became the greeting card boy over the next several years. The neighbors began expecting me in the fall and some of them were regular customers. The next year, I was probably about eleven years old, the pamphlet came in our mail box. This was the one that changed my life, the one I will never forget. One of the prizes was a rod and reel including a tackle box with a bunch of tackle in it. I looked it over and realized I would be set for life! The catch was I would have to sell sixteen boxes of greetings; in a normal season I only sold 8 or 10 boxes. I was motivated though and devised a plan.

I waited until a Saturday when my parents were gone and got my pamphlet and started walking. The neighbors had gotten to know me but that day I went into new territory, all the way around the country block. I was walking because we had no bike then. A country block is a square mile; I walked all the way around the block that day, 4 miles, and knocked on about 40 doors. One of the advantages of selling door to door is getting over your fear of talking to complete strangers. I don’t remember who bought what that day, I just remember knocking on door after door. After I passed the last house I took a tally on my sheet and jumped for joy; I had sold 18 boxes of greeting cards. The fishing gear was mine. I arrived home about 5 o’clock tired and hungry but as happy as I had ever been. The next week I filled out my order form and gave my mom the money so she would write a check for the total and we sent it in. I put it in the mailbox and waited.

I waited so long for the package to arrive that I forgot about it. Then suddenly one day it was there. I opened the package carefully to reveal a dream come true. I realize now how cheap that gear was made but at the time it was magnificent, and it was all mine. A small white fiberglass rod with steel eyes and a black plastic handle, a very simple spincasting reel half black and half red, and a small plastic tackle box with some gear in it. I had a stringer, an assortment of hooks and weights, some bobbers and line to put on the reel. The next Saturday when I had a chance I got everything ready and went over to the neighbor’s pond. Everything worked great, and I soon got tired of catching tiny little bluegills. It was time to expand my horizons. I began exploring the neighborhood, asking permission to fish every pond I heard of. I was a cute little boy and soon had permission to fish every pond except one; the Davidhizars. They were afraid of a lawsuit they said. Well; his wife said that and he didn’t say anything. I only snuck in there to fish it once and caught nothing so I figured it wasn’t worth the hassle. During the spring and summer whenever my parents were gone I soon had my tackle box in one hand and fishing rod in the other, the classic picture of the little boy gone fishing.

My favorite pond was owned by Clemens Yoder. My parents had rented a house from them at one time and now they lived just around the corner from us, a little bit east then north. They had an older son named Bill that was never right in the head, or at least so they thought. He functioned okay, just lived like a hermit with his parents. I had to cross land owned by a grumpy neighbor to get to Clemens’ pond so I would always walk down to where it was wooded and sneak through the woods to get to the pond. On Clemens’ property was a huge sycamore tree; the trunk must have been at least 4 feet in diameter. It had multiple branches and gigantic leaves. As a little boy I thought this is what the Tree of Life from Genesis must be like and I would always stop on the way to the pond to look at the tree and wonder at it. That spring, summer, and fall after getting my gear I spent every chance I had fishing. My home life was such that I tended to disappear inside myself. My time in the outdoors was freedom from oppression and learning to catch fish gave me a certain self esteem, the belief that I could take care of myself. I wandered far and wide that summer, learning the neighborhood well and occasionally experiencing some bizarre happenings. One time I was back at Clemens’ pond fishing for some time. The pond was T-shaped and I was at the top of the T fishing when I looked across and slowly coming into focus there was a head sticking out of the water. At first I assumed it was unattached and then I saw the shoulders just under the surface and gradually realized the whole body of Bill was laying in the water nude with just his head sticking out. I calmly gathered my stuff and left. During those years I received an education in navigating the outdoors, taking care of myself, and catching fish.

The next year saw more of the same, only that summer we got a bicycle to share amongst the eight of us and I began using it. This opened up my territory considerably but Clemens Pond remained my favorite. I think that was due to the fact that it was far back in the woods, no houses nearby, and the magnificent sycamore tree was on the way there. Also that summer I went with my dad on a trip to Kentucky for Mennonite Disaster Service. We spent a week near the Green River in Kentucky working on repairing houses that had been flooded. One day we visited a local tackle shop and the owner talked to us for a while, curious about the Amish. I had some money, maybe from birthdays, I am not sure why; my dad would never have allowed me to have money. At any rate I had some money and bought a couple lures to add to my tackle box. One was a Rapala with a frog coloring, big, about four inches long. It floated and had a white plastic lip on the front that made a shallow dive when retrieved. It had a propeller on the back, with three treble hooks spaced evenly along its length. I had no idea at the time I bought it but that lure was to become my favorite bass lure. I still have it today 30 years after purchasing it; one time at my cousin Ray’s pond a fish broke my line and kept that lure but the next time I went back to fish there I found it lying at the edge. The rest of the summer was uneventful, although with the bike I had access to more ponds and was introduced to bass although they were smaller, most being twelve inches or smaller. Winter intervened and I played indoor games until the days started getting a little longer and that first tinge of green was on the trees and the ponds were free from ice.

Clemens’ pond remains in my memory as a haven for my mind. It was an escape from my troubles at home, a place where I was completely free. It was far back in the woods, no houses nearby. This particular morning was probably in June. I was an early riser, a morning person. I would get up before any of my siblings and they would complain about the noise I made. I was normally up when the sky in the east was just starting to turn pink. My parents would be at work and if we didn’t have to work in the garden or strawberry patch that day I would grab my gear and go. This was one of those mornings. The grass was wet with dew on my bare feet. I went along the fenceline north on our property then west on the neighbor’s property until I hit the woods, crossing the fence here and heading north again through the grumpy neighbor’s woods. I had seen deer in this area several times, a giant buck that resided in our area at one time, but I saw no deer today. I crossed over to Clemens’ property and made my way to the sycamore tree. Here in the early morning light the tree was always a little surreal, out of this world. I sat underneath it contemplating my world. Here the world was fair; there were no monsters after me. I became one with my surroundings as first the chipmunks and birds came out again, then the squirrels. After all was right in the world I went on to the pond. I stood in my favorite place on Clemens pond. The pond contained only stunted bluegills to my knowledge; I had never caught anything longer than three inches out of it. The top of the T was my favorite place. This morning I tied on the big 4 inch frog colored Rapala. I had never caught a big fish in that pond but there was still my imagination. I began casting down into the leg of the T and retrieving slowly so I could just see the Rapala under the surface. I had learned in other ponds that this was a very effective technique. There was a ring of algae and lily pads around the edge of the pond and when the lure got to the edge I would simply pull up and swing the lure onto the bank where I would finish reeling it up in preparation for the next cast. I fished like this for a while, not catching anything but enjoying my freedom and basking in my imagination of the fish I was catching.

I was patient if nothing else. I kept casting the lure and reeling it in. I honestly did not expect to catch anything which increased the astonishment when I did. I cast out as always and retrieved the lure to the edge of the lily pads and lifted it up but not quite far enough. It landed on top of the solid green bed of algae about two feet out from my feet. I had just enough time to focus on it and was starting to lift my rod to bring it the rest of the way to the shore when there was a gigantic “KAWOOSH” right where the lure had landed. My heart stopped beating for a few seconds and I very nearly dropped the rod. I gradually regained my senses and realized a giant fish had swallowed my lure and was headed for the other side of the pond. I am not sure what test line was on my reel but it was pretty strong line. This was the first time I had a fish on the line that was stronger than my drag was set. The fish took off some line and headed off for the other side of the pond. She was no match for that line though and I fought her back towards me slowly, finally sliding her up on top of the lily pads and over the algae to the bank. I pulled her up on the bank far enough that I felt safe. At the time I had never considered putting a fish back after I caught it, and I had no real knowledge of the spawning schedule or how catching spawning fish effects the ecosystem of a pond. All I knew was that I had caught leviathan and she was mine. I knelt beside her on the bank and just looked at her. It was one of the first times I saw how truly beautiful a fish is. The green sides with a dark strip down the center, the mouth that was engineered to open large enough to swallow small ducklings, and the tail that powered it through the water. I was awed. I pulled the tape measure out of my tackle box; she was 19 inches long.

I went back to fishing and realized my hands were shaking. After a climax like that everything else seemed tame. I couldn’t fish any more, at least not that day. I gathered my stuff, leviathan was on my stringer, and made my way home through the woods. I took the fish home and fileted it and fried it for my lunch. It was delicious.

It would be several years later that I started noticing articles that talked about catch & release fishing and not fishing for spawning fish. It took a while for me to see the sense in this but it gradually sank in. Years later I would start reading about fly fishing and I now have a vast collection of materials to tie my own flies. All of this was built on the foundation that was created when I sold eighteen boxes of greetings and received a cheap rod, reel, and gear; a lifetime of sportsmanship built on the pursuit of a dream.