Steve's Memories - Part 2... Day 20/30

When I was 12, dad took me to the Horseshoe Bend Mill Pond to work fishermen. There was only one road into the Mill Pond and every fisherman there could see the when the Game Warden was coming. This made it hard to catch people with too many fish or those who were fishing without a license.

So on this day, dad loaded up my fishing pole and my bicycle in his work truck and off we went. I didn't know it, but I was about to go on my first undercover job. When we got near the pond, dad unloaded me and my bike and sent me to the far end and told me to watch the people in the camper, the 2 guys in the old pickup, and the 4 people in the station wagon. He said, "I'll come get you in one hour."

So, down the hill to the Mill Pond I went. Fish and Game had just planted 1,500 trout in the pond so fishing was good. I parked my bike between the guys in the old pickup and the people in the camper and started fishing. Everyone was catching the hell out of the fish. The people in the camper with catching the most, probably 30 or 40 of them. They also had 11 or 12 on a stringer in the water and the other 30 or so they had hidden in the brush.

Pretty soon, dad came down the hill and people started putting down their poles and hiding fish. Dad drove right past me to the camper, introduced himself, checked their licenses, and asked how many fish they had. One of the guys said, "We have 11 or 12 on that stringer right there." Dad looked at the fish then turned to me, still fishing where he told me to sit and said, "Is that all the fish he has son?" I said, "Nope, he has about 30 hidden in the brush right there!"

That fisherman about had a cow when he discovered that this little kid was sitting there working undercover. Dad ended up writing 3 or 4 citations that day and we had a good laugh over it all!