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Steve Merlo: Reflections on an old wooden bridge
| Thursday, May 8 2008 10:57 PM
Last Updated: Friday, May 9 2008 8:24 AM
I took a drive the other day, back to my youth, trying to find a crayfish for bait or a bullfrog or two for dinner. Buttonwillow had grown from when I had lived there, and nothing was the same. The rubble of the old places, spots where I grew up hunting or fishing with my brother and friends, offered nothing but mute testimony of their once productive and fun existence. The empty sights saddened me.
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The weir at the dirt canal where I learned to fish and spent so much of my youth has disappeared the irrigation folks had long since replaced the canal with cement to enhance the flow of the priceless commodity. I envision the old wooden structure in my mind, subtracting how old I was against my current age and discover nearly half a century has passed since my brother, our friends and I frolicked, fished and swam in the eddy it made.
At my feet, a band of brush extends along the bank. Before we had rods and reels, we'd stash the cane poles we had fashioned in those weeds until we needed them. They may not have been modern gear, but they did suffice until we got our own rods and reels.
Downstream I see the stretch where my brother and I caught our first bass on my father's spinning gear. Dad had shined up a couple of Colorado spinners for us and we both scored on small largemouth bass. I must have been about 12, my brother 10, when that happened, and we were hooked forever.
Weaned on catching carp, catfish, perch and bass out of that canal a few hundred yards from home, I never expected anything more than a good time. However, the fishing education we got there would later furnish the basic groundwork for our successful angling around the country and also in the professional ranks.
Across the canal from where I have parked, the PG & E power plant now sits, and I recall the cold, foggy November day when we rode our bikes to the weir to fish. The mist had lifted and a flock of Canada Geese sat but a hundred yards out in the alfalfa, clucking and honking their disapproval of the humans eyeing them with feral lust. We raced back home to tell Dad, and though he tried to sneak up on them with his trusty shotgun, his kids had remained in view too long and the birds took wing.
A hundred yards away, the local Little League field has been built on top of a great little dove hunting spot, despite the protests of the guy that took care of the park grounds. I don't think he really objected about our hunting, but the way his wife yelled and hollered at him, it was apparent who did. We had to cease and desist before Mom and Dad found out.
A quarter-mile downstream, near the curve, the Morones' bridge used to span the canal so that they could get their mail instead of driving into town. Of course, the bridge worked to our advantage, and the fish gathered there in droves, causing all of the fishermen in town to gather there in droves, too.
By the time I had turned 13, my father allowed us to hunt alone, and I had to cross the weir each time I wanted to get to the hunting grounds. Over there, a quarter-mile away, I see the spot where our big gray Weimaraner, Eric, flushed a big rooster pheasant that I missed. A covey of quail once lived there too, along with scads of doves, but I didn't miss many of them.
A million bullfrogs once called the canal home, most of them big old boomers that took two hands to hold. I know, because I must have caught half of them during my teens, most of them right below where I now stand daydreaming about it.
I had no idea that selling them was illegal until later in my life, but the cash they brought in helped put me through high school without too much of a burden on my parents. I shudder to think what the local game warden would have done had he caught, or even asked, me what I was doing with them, because I would have told him, not knowing it was wrong.
The law also played a part in my dealings at the weir. My late friend Larry Johnson managed to bring some firecrackers back from Oklahoma, where he shared the contraband with his best friend. I can still see the sheriff's deputy, Ken, standing akimbo, lecturing while we broke each piece of contraband into pieces while he threatened to tell Mom and Dad about the criminals their sons had become. A week later, Dad, his two felonious sons and Ken went frogging, and thankfully, he never said a word. I hope he finds heaven, because he sure taught us a lesson about laws, humility and friendship.
It's been so long since I played here at the weir. I squint my eyes, remembering my friends, how they laughed and played while catching fish and growing up. I try hard to imagine what each one of them went on to do with their lives, whether they were alive or dead or where they lived. I wonder if they, too, remember the little wooden bridge. I wish there was still a bit of water just below where the weir stood, so I could see my own reflection of what I had become.