Brook Trout and Uncle Willy

     It was the day my life-long interest in the brook trout began.  My mother, 5 sisters and I lived on a small dairy farm owned by my grandparents and which was now run mostly by my youngest uncle.  We had moved here from our even smaller dairy farm after my father died in an automobile accident.  Our few milking cows became part of my grandparents herd.  We had a team of work horses, Chubby and Mary, 12 milking cows in the combined herd, and a flock of chickens. 

     Uncle Willy had just gotten out of the army, having served in Europe with a mortar unit during WWII.  He was living on the farm and helping out his younger brother (my uncle Karl) and his father (my grandfather) with hay making and other summer farm chores.  I had just turned 9.  It was an overcast day in July, about 70 degrees, and Uncle Willy was having a break from farm work.  We had just finished lunch.  Uncle Willy put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Hey Jim Buddy, how about if we walk down to the crick and see if we can catch some trout?”  “OK,” I answered, beaming.  I was quite introverted and it was rare that I spoke more than 2 words but Uncle Willy was one of the few people I felt comfortable talking to.  Also, I sort of liked it when he called me Jim buddy.   I knew what trout were, having watched my Uncle Karl bring some home now and then.  My mother or grandmother would clean them and we all enjoyed eating them, sprinkled with flour, salted and peppered, and fried in real butter.  As we left the house, Uncle Willy did not take a fishing pole but instead grabbed three empty 2 lb coffee cans off a shelf in the porch.  We headed to the tool shed where Uncle Willy punched about 15 holes in the bottom of two of the cans with a hammer and a large nail.  That seemed a little odd to me but I wasn’t going to say anything to Uncle Willy.  In just the few days he had been on the farm, he had talked to me, helped me learn to ride a bike, taken me to a movie, taught me Canasta, a card game, and now he was going to take me fishing.  Through the subsequent years he became my father figure and hero, fishing and hunting companion, and best adult friend. 

     “I’m taking Jim down to the crick,” Uncle Willy said to my mother.  “OK, be careful,” my mother said, “take a couple of donuts with you.” We grabbed our jackets, grabbed a couple of my mother’s and grandmother’s home-made donuts, and we were off. 

     It took us about 15 minutes to walk to the hill over looking the crick valley.  Long Crick, the main crick, ran through the low land on the north edge of the farm.  Its route was very straight East to West, having been straightened by the WPA to encourage rapid draining.  From the top of the hill where we stood, the snake-like meanders of the old crick bed were still evident.  Uncle Willy told me some years later that he could regularly catch 10 nice brookies fishing all those deep corners and that the Works Progress Administration (WPA) all but ruined that crick.  To this day I regret not improving the trout habitat along that straight stretch by adding rocks and logs in strategic locations to give back some of the meanders.  But on this day, Uncle Willy had in mind to lead me to a tributary of Long Crick.  This was a very small crick, named Crooked Crick, that flowed from the north and joined Long Crick on my grandparent’s property.  It had not been worked on by the WPA and still had all its meanders.  In almost every corner there was a “hole” where the current had dug under the bank.  Wherever it flowed over or under fallen logs or under rocks, the current had again dug out a “hole.” These were “cricks” in the true sense of the word, I should say, in the words of writer Patrick McManus.  Years later, while reading the McManus books, I came upon the story “Crick or Creek” and realized that McManus defined our farm cricks admirably.  These were truly cricks and not creeks and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to catch many of their colorful brookies while growing up.  But first, Uncle Willy had to teach me the ways of the brook trout and today I was going to receive my first lessons.