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Laugh at me will you?
In Memory of our Dad, Clyde Wm. Mills
A FishTackler® article.
copyright 2005 By Lynn Mills. All rights reserved.
Class of 58, Bountiful High, Utah     

1950 's fishing trip with Dad
1950's fishing trip with Dad
Back of boat brothers left to right Galen and Alan with unidentified friend rowing.
 
     On a blisteringly hot summer day in the 1950’s what could induce a 14 year old boy to cheerfully mow all the lawns around the house and then water them all day long? Two words. Fishing trip. With the grass cut short and the ground soggy we would impatiently wait for darkness to descend and the night crawlers ascend in the rural town of Bountiful Utah. With flashlights in hand my brothers and I would start gathering night crawlers on one edge of the front lawn and work slowly to the other end and then back and forth until we had covered the whole lawn, The night crawler hunt was almost as much fun as fishing. Night crawlers are sensitive to light and vibration. If the light were shined directly onto the night crawler they would retreat into their holes. We crawled slowly and deliberately because a knee touching the ground too hard would be sensed by the crawlers and they disappeared in an instant. You had to be fast to get the crawler before it zipped into its hole like a flash of lightning. When you succeeded in grabbing a night crawler it became a tug of war between you and the night crawler. With the hands of a surgeon you pulled just hard enough to slowly extricate the worm from its tunnel and the night crawler pulled back almost as hard. It required a great deal of finesse to finally win the battle without breaking the night crawler in half. If the front lawn did not yield the six dozen night crawlers we needed for our fishing trip then we moved to the side and back lawns. Finally we would have enough worms and about midnight we would go to bed, The hunt for the night crawlers had been so intense and we were so focussed on the worms that I remember laying in bed and closing my eyes and seeing a mental picture of thousands of night crawlers. At four A.M. Dad would wake us and we would climb into the car with the boat hitched and packed with food and fishing gear. How well I remember those cool mid summer mornings. The light just beginning to break above the mountains and robins singing. The streets were totally deserted and except for the paper boy, the whole neighborhood was sleeping. Off we would go, my Dad, my sister and my brothers and I. South! South was the way! South to Utah lake! We were not after Pike or Trout or bass. We were after a what to a 14 year old was a much more dangerous prey. A fish that could sting with its sharp thorny barbs. A fish with tiny needle teeth that could draw blood from a young boys finger. A fish with whiskers and beady little black eyes. We were after the fearsome cat fish or other wise known as mud cats. When you caught a cat fish the battle was only half done. Now you had to remove it from the line without getting barbed. Great care was taken during the fish hook removal for to get barbed meant a sore hand for several days. When we were floating in the middle of Utah Lake being rocked gently back and forth by the waves we would watch our bobbers so intently that the summer heat barely phased us. During the afternoon lunch break we would fish from the bank or catch snakes and gophers or look at the Indian Petra glyphs on the local rock outcrops. We would gaze on the strange markings and our imaginations would take us back to ancient times. We tried to imagine the scene as these Petra glyphs were being created. Who created them? How old were they? What did they mean? No young men could ever ask for a richer heritage than that given to us by our Dad who loved to fish and loved life and loved people. Dad didn't just take his sons fishing. He took our friends fishing and the neighbor boys, and the Boy Scouts. No one who wanted to go was excluded. Eventually that magic time of life retreated into our memories and then it was our children's turn to go with grandpa into that Peter Pan wonder world. Dad was not a macho type fisherman. He fished for the pure joy of fishing.
     As I think back it was not just fishing trips. I remember well sleeping under the stars on deer hunts. He came with me to a winter camp out with the Scouts at Tracy Wigwam. He gave me some sage advice on that trip. "Put your shoes in the bottom of your sleeping bag where they will stay warm," he said. In the morning when every one else was struggling to put on their curled up frozen solid shoes, we quickly and quite comfortably slipped our worm shoe on. Dad took groups of boys on rabbit hunts to help the farmers in Utah and Idaho control the rabbit population. He took the Scouts down the white water rapids of the San Juan river. The fishing trips are what I remember the most though. Maybe that was because there were so many fishing trips. We fished Utah lake for cat fish, Deer Creek reservoir for perch, the high alpine lakes of the Uinta Mountains, Flaming gorge, Strawberry Reservoir, Bottle hollow and dozens of other places for trout. Lake Powel for striper bass. Willard bay for channel cat fish and the pacific Ocean for Salmon and razor clams. I remember one trip to the Northwest to Westport. We went out on a a charter and didn't catch a thing. Dad was not about to go back empty handed and so he stopped at a store and bought some fresh Salmon, had it packed in dry ice and cautioned us not to tell Mom that he hadn't caught the fish.
On another trip to Fish Lake high in the mountains of central Utah we did quite well. We trolled in a 12 foot aluminum boat using flat fish. On the second day with freezer full of fish in the Silver Streak trailer we headed for home. The trailer was tail heavy and on the way down the mountain the car and trailer began to swerve violently from side to side striking the guard rails on both sides of the highway. At the precise moment I thought we were going over the edge of a steep precipice The guard rail cut the trailer hitch off the car sending a silver streak, (trailer), soaring through the air and then plummeting down the mountain. In its wake two propane tanks were left standing upright in the middle of the highway hissing propane Parked in the road was a dark blue Chrysler Imperial with four very frightened occupants. Far below was a shattered Silver Streak trailer and a freezer full of fish that got away.
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 Clyde Wm Mills with fish caught at Strwberry Res.

Clyde Wm. Mills showing a Lake Trout caught at Strawberry Res.

     One of Dads last fishing trips was to Causey Reservoir near Logan Utah with my wife, our two sons, David and Dale and my brother Galen. We were standing side by side fishing from the bank. Everyone caught fish but Dad consistently pulled in tiny fish. We wanted to laugh but every one held it in. Finally Galen, who had been catching some bigger fish, traded places with Dad. Well you can guess the rest. Galen caught a nice fish from Dads spot and at the same time Dad saw his bobber pop up and down and in his well known tradition he let out a hoop and yanked back on his fishing pole. Then he proceeded to reel in the smallest catfish I have ever seen. We couldn't hold our laughter in any longer. We all burst out laughing and Dad looked up at us with a big smile and said, “laugh at me will you?” That has become a treasured saying in the Mills family. When some one is the center of a joke they almost always respond with, “laugh at me will you?” in fond memory of our Dad and grandpa.



Some of my other pages


Science

 Fishing


 Quackery
Cartoons
By
Lynn Mills		 Odds and Sods
And a little tongue in cheek
About Me
Black light UV LED
to convert a 3 or 4 cell flashlight		 FishTackler®
Registered TM for sale! Click here for Info.		 Cartoon 1
Strip Poker		 Incredibly beautiful Drying Soap Bubbles
Make Wild Fires
Go Away!		 Do Fish See Color? Cartoon 2
Left Overs		 Energy Demand Verses Global Warming!
Where Does Lightning Come From? Fish the Strike Zone. Cartoon 3
Are You Asleep?		 Bee Wars 200,000 Bees verses 3 men &
a dog! A true story.
Acid etching Limestone Fossils Triple spinner Bumble Bee  Cartoon 4
Panty Hose.
 A long shot coincidence or Number please?
3D Through the Eyes of T Rex How to make Freeze Dried Night crawlers
or if messy isn't your thing...
Cartoon 5
Tantrums		 How to Unlock Gridlock  This one earned
me the, "delightful nut" awardCJ
The Amazing World of Silica Gel
All you need is a laser pointer and silica gel.		 Order Freeze Dried Night Crawlers. Cartoon 6
Bermuda Triangle		 Panning for gold in western WA
What is Ultraviolet Light? Triple Blade Pop Style Fishing Spinners Cartoon 7
How Was It?		 A Virgin Lost Gold Account
How to Make an Ultraviolet Light FishTackler® Home Page Cartoon 8
Rocking Egg		 Grooming the Environment, a Green Thing 
Purify Your Drinking Water Triple Spinner Chartreuse Chaser Cartoon 9
Remove Your Clothes		 Outdoor Survival Tips that may save your life!
Science Fair, Phone on a Wire How to Fish With GloWings™ Cartoon 10
God's Great Computer.		 The amazing EZ garden
Subduction Zone Volcano Postulate.     Cartoon 11
Shear Delight		 My memories of Bountiful, Utah
1947 - 2007
The Mystery Clock, how does it works?     Cartoon 12
Wet the Bed		 Grow tomatoes indoors
Like SciFi? Read
Blue Dot .		     Cartoon 13
Basket Ball		 Tips for your Halloween Haunted house
or spook alley           
"Photo"
Is it real or has it been altered? Can you tell? 		    Cartoon 14
Lovin the Rain		 Spook Alley page 2         
"Photo"
How to erase unwanted objects		         The Camp Fire Ghost!               
How to make a barometer                      
How to make a smoke ring cannon                  




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