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Through the Front Door! by Jim Kuebelbeck Fish Net Part 1 It now seems like a hundred years ago, but old memories sometimes have a way of sticking with a person forever. My fa- ther was never one to tolerate anyone in our family doing some- thing that might hurt someone else. There were strict limits to our behavior, which included not hurting another person’s feel- ings. Growing up with a number of brothers and sisters, he often warned us never to steal even the smallest thing, because “if one steals even the littlest thing, it will soon lead to stealing big- ger things”. We never found out if the statement was true or not, because we weren’t willing to find out what would happen to us if we violated the rule. Harming another person in any way or damaging property, and having our dad find out about it was something we absolutely feared, so none of us ever got into any major trouble. (A little mischief, yes.) Shooting a squirrel, pheasant, duck, goose, or some other game animal out of season for an evening meal, while not con- doned, seemed to meet with his tacit approval, however. His words were: “Don’t shoot or take more than we need for us to eat.” And we generally followed his advice. We happened to live near a creek which fed into a rather large lake. In the springtime after the ice went out of the lake, some fish would leave the lake and swim upstream into the creek. Although it was illegal, one of our neighbors would place a wire basket in the creek with a funnel opening on each end to trap a few of the fish moving upstream. When I first learned about it, and told my dad what they were doing, he said he was aware of it, but those neighbors of ours really didn’t have much money to buy food, so he couldn’t blame them for violating the game laws a little. He said the only fish they took were “rough” fish and not “game” fish. He then told me during the winter, espe- cially around Christmas, he and Mom would always take them a bunch of canned meat and other garden produce she had pre- served in the fall, to make sure they had enough to eat. I had never known this before, but I thought it was a mighty nice thing for them to do. With our chickens, pigs, and dairy cattle, we weren’t starving by any means, but the thought of catching some fish by the “basket” method seemed to be quite adventurous. Sometime later, I asked my dad if we could build one of those fish traps. He said we were not going to do that, but he knew Romie had one out in his shed. Romie happened to be married to one of my older sisters and they lived in a small town a few miles away. The next time I saw Romie, I asked him about it, and he said he still had such a trap, but hadn’t used it for years. When asked if maybe he could show me how they were used, he told me those kinds of fish traps were illegal, but a lot of people still used them, especially in the spring when some of the fish came out of the lakes into the creeks. He said next spring we would go out some night and put the thing into the creek, that it would be better if no one saw us putting it out, because if a game warden would happen to catch us, we’d probably get into some kind of trouble. He then added that the chief of police lived just down the block. He knew him pretty well, and he happened to be the local game warden too, so we would have to be careful and keep it to ourselves. Romie said the chief had one of those fish traps in his shed too - he had seen it many times. He didn’t know where it came from, but it was really well-made. It was a square basket, about two feet high, three feet wide, and about six feet long. Romie’s was a little bit smaller. We’ll finish the story next month. Jim Jim Kuebelbeck may be contacted via e-mail to michele@ worldwidedrillingresource.com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orldWide Drilling Resource ®