Many dreary things plague us in the news. I have fishing tales. None untold are long enough to fit the bill unless I string a few ideas together. I have a story that isn’t how I started fishing, but how I started loving fishing.
It was a while before I chose to fish for trout. A sunfish bit onto my beginner’s hook and heart at Newcomb Lake in upstate New York, when I was 12, and their ravenous abundance led me to the false belief that fishing was easy. Just drop in the line, and yank out a fish. This was the sport for me.
I was in New York to meet my Uncle Bob for the first time. My teenage sister, Carol, had never met him either, so one summer, with her husband, Phil, in his hippy VW van that we hand-painted, we decided on impulse to trek from central Pennsylvania and introduce ourselves to Uncle Bob for the first time. We’d also get to meet Aunt Ruby and cousin Dicky.
We had never met our oldest uncle because Uncle Bob left Pennsylvania as a youth when his daddy, Joe, our grandad, got nearly busted for making moonshine in the Ridgway hills. A transport got seized and it wouldn’t be long before the source location was hunted down. Story went that the local sheriff, one of Joe’s best customers, tipped him off to the coming raid and told him to hightail it out of the state.
My Grandpa Joe packed some clothes in a trunk and headed north on short notice. His wife, Minnie, my grandmother, refused to leave her Pennsylvania home and garden and friends with no warning in Joe’s getaway car at midnight, so she stayed behind with their three sons, Bob, Ed and Harry. Years later, Ed and Harry, my daddy, went off to WWII. Bob chose instead to head north and locate his father, Joe. My grandmother cleaned homes and offices in Ridgway, and later raised me and my two sisters.
“Let’s go meet him,” Carol and I decided. We called and told him we wanted to visit and he said, “Come on up. I’ll save some rooms for you.”
Uncle Bob had done well for himself, much better than his two younger brothers. He and Aunt Ruby owned a lakeside lodge, restaurant, and bar outside of Newcomb. As he introduced it, “Take a left on Gibbs Lane off Route 28. We have the only draft beer in Newcomb.”
Uncle Bob stayed busy, but he took the time go get to know us. We took a long boat ride through the vast network of Adirondack waterways. I asked if there were fish in the lake.
Uncle Bob took special notice of my curiosity. “So, you like to catch fish?” I nodded. “You really like to catch fish?” I nodded again. “I’m talking a lot of fish,” he said with both hands. I was all eyeballs and teeth. “Wait until we get back to the lodge. We’ll fish off the pier.”
I had fished previously, lumbering carp, weak-willed shiners, and mean catfish that stab and bite. I didn’t have any experience with sunfish, but Uncle Bob was sure I’d enjoy catching them, and brought out a pole for me. He sold bait as well. We walked out to a bench at the pier’s end, past his boat, and he encouraged me to worm my hook and cast away. He would watch. I cast. Wham. A fish hit my line instantly and tugged and darted vigorously back and forth. I had to use both hands and pay attention. He put up a heck of a fight. When I lifted him out of the water he wriggled so fast I could just about see through him. “Should we eat him?” I asked.
“Naw. You have to scale them. Those are too small to bother with. In the ocean, sunfish can get up over 2,000 pounds. But they’re fun to catch. Toss them all back, and let’s see how many you can catch.” He left me on the pier and went back to work.
I fished all afternoon. Every cast was a catch. I used up the worms and ran back to the bait shop for more. I was eager to impress my interesting new uncle with my fishing skills. I caught 31 and stopped. I told him at dinner and he clapped his hands and rubbed my head.
Aunt Ruby told me I was quite a fisherman, and that I should come back and visit more often. She was a sharply dressed, beautiful, buxom black-haired woman with big, ruby-red lips, like her name, and a fast smile. She ran the restaurant, Uncle Bob ran the bar, and they both managed the 18-room lodge.
Carol, Phil, and I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the restaurant for the week we stayed. Uncle Bob and Aunt Ruby were gracious hosts and not put off at all by our flower-power hippie van. Most days Carol and Phil ran off with Cousin Dicky who was their age and cruised around Newcomb. I stayed at the lodge and fished every day, my new passion.
I never saw Uncle Bob or Aunt Ruby again. I didn’t make it back to Newcomb. We’ve shared a few holiday cards. Later in life, they sold the lodge, moved to Florida, and instead of retiring, bought a new business cleaning mobile home exteriors. I heard they were doing well.
To them I say, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Steve Gibbs is a retired Benicia High School teacher who has written a column for The Herald since 1985.

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