I know a lady who would rather fish than just about anything else. Diggin’ worms and putting em on a hook, no matter. Using shiners, chicken livers, gizzards, or anything else for that matter, she don’t care. Put any of this down in front of her, and boom, they’re on her hook and in the water!
You can’t get up too early in the morning for her, it can’t get too hot in the middle of the day that she wants to go in and take a break, and you can’t keep her out fishing too late either! She absolutely loves to catch a fish. Big ones, or little ones, to her they’re all the same…a fish!
To everyone who knows her…she’s simply known as Ruthie, and all that do know her, love her, bar none! This includes her oldest son, who by the way calls her Ruthie about three quarters of the time, too!
Ruthie, is my Mama, but again, most times… just Ruthie!
Fishin’ is one thing my Mama and I have done a lot of together, and we have had some really, really enjoyable times. She likes to laugh and cut-up just as much as I do, and she can take it as good as give it, and I say this because when we’re together, I’m usually giving it to her pretty good.
Ruthie loves it though, and says, “Dub, you’re crazy! How in the world do you come up with that stuff all the time?” I tell her between her brother, my Uncle Harold, and her, well it just seems to come natural!
The ability to laugh, is one of, if not THE most important trait she passed on to me, and dad-gum she passed me a wash tub full of it!
Well, with all that being said, I need to tell you guys about Ruthie’s Honey Hole.
It didn’t start out a honey hole, but quite the opposite. Down below Mom and Dad’s house, down in a pasture was a dried up lake bottom. Years and years ago, it was part of a pretty good size lake. An island had set in the middle of it.
Anyway, the State built a new road that ran from Apopka where Mom and Dad live, to Interstate 4. This is 429.
Well, while building this road, the State needed all kinds of dirt for the construction of this road. One place they got it from was Mom and Dad’s place, and this was the start of Ruthie’s Honey Hole!
Once they got started, it was crazy. I’d never seen anything like it. There were dump trucks coming in and out like ants, really. They had three big track hoes working at all times, just loading trucks out.
On the best days they’d load up to 1,100 dump trucks, I just couldn’t believe the volume of dirt being moved.
Once they finished, they dressed everything up, sloped the sides where they could be mowed, and seeded all the slopes. The lake depth in spots was 49 feet. Now Ruthie just needed rain, and a lot of it.
The lake leveled out to the water table, then once the rains started, it continued to fill. Dad built Mom the first dock, though prematurely he was fixing to find out, because the water level continued to rise, and went over the decking of the dock.
What does he do? He builds a second dock right over the top of the first one, this one even longer than the first as the water was further up the bank now as the lake kept filling. We all tried to get him to hold up on the second dock, but to no avail…his mind was made up, it was getting built! The man has a two story dock! Thinking on this for a minute, he might be where I get my hardheadedness from. (Yes Sandra, hardheadedness is a word, at least to us it is, isn’t it?)
Well, by now Dad had put in his minnows, and let them stage for about three months, then went in and stocked the Georgia Hybrid Bream, which by the way grow up to 5 pounds. These dern things are wide across the back, and make just a big slab of meat.
These bream are very aggressive, and I know you won’t believe it, but we have caught these things just dribbling a bare hook in the water. We’ve all done it, Deb included, who by the way, loves to fish JUST as good as my Mama!
Then Dad stocked the lake with largemouth bass, and came back just a little later with some stripers. The lake was dug five years ago, and Mom and Dad are catching bass now over ten pounds. It is literally amazing how these fish are growing off.
The water is crystal clear as well, and is really a beautiful body of water. So, Ruthie indeed has her a “honey hole,” and she’s loving every minute of it!
The lake varies some in size from 20 to 25 acres depending on the time of year.
Back quickly to Dad and his dock. The water level went over the decking of his second dock. The man then built a third dock from the foundation of the first and second ones! I swear the man did, and now has a three-story dock, honestly he does!
After the fish were really doing well, grass was beginning to grow around the lake. Not just a little, but a lot. This was worrying Dad to death, and he asked me if I knew of anything he could spray to knock it back some. I told him no, but to call the University of Florida and they could tell him of something.
He decides to call the man in Georgia who supplied Dad with all the fish to stock the lake with. He tells Dad to come on up, bring his truck, and he’d sell him some carp, and they’d take care of his grass problem.
Dad likes the guy anyway, and says the guy could sell you a rock if he took a mind too, so off he goes to get him some of these carp!
Once there he asks him if the carp will REALLY take care of the grass? The man tells Dad they’ll handle the grass, no problem.
Dad is real finicky about his fish at this point and goes, “Well, if the carp eat all the grass…they won’t go to eatin’ any of my other fish, right?” The man tells him no, they wouldn’t.
Dad then asks him, covering all the bases, “Well, what would they eat?”
The man says, “Stewart, you have any grass planted on the slopes around the lake?” Dad says yes, there’s a bunch of grass now…plenty of it, shoot, I gotta mow it every couple weeks for sure with a tractor and 16 foot bush-hog!
The man says that’s good, that’s real good! Dad asks him why would he ask if there was plenty of grass on the slopes around the lake?
The man says, “Stewart, when them carp eat all the grass outta’ the lake, them scoundrels will climb up outta’ the lake, and roll up on the shore into all that good grass, and just go to town eatin’ on them grassy slopes! As a matter a fact, I’ve seen ‘em personally out of the water, 6-8 feet up on land, eat till they get full, then just roll on back into the water!”
Well Dad saw where all this was going, but he had already made up his mind to buy some carp to take back, some of which weighed up to 20 pounds. They got the truck loaded, and while Dad was writing the guy a check, the man asks one more thing of Dad.
He asks, “Stewart, do you have a dock built already?” Dad didn’t tell him he actually had three, one stacked right on top of one another, but did reply that, yes he had a dock.
The man says, “If you don’t mind me asking…what color is it?” Dad said that it ain’t no color, just the natural wood.
The man then says, “Man that’s good Stewart, that’s real good!” Dad asked him why he’d say that?
The man says, “Cause, whatever you do, DON”T PAINT IT GREEN, cause if you was to paint it green, them dern carp WOULD EAT IT TOO!”
Dad said he ‘bout busted a gut laughing at that feller, and also told me that if I ever wanted to pick up any fish from that guy, to let him go with me. Said if I went up there by myself as “a rookie,” the dern guy would sell me the world!
I hope you guys have a great day, and thank you for coming back by to visit a while!
God Bless you and yours!
Dub and Deb
Funniest thing I have ever read. We are lucky people who had Mom’s and Dad’s that hauled us around fishing. Both my parents loved to fish, but would not go fishing together. He had his ponds and lakes he liked and she preferred tributary fishing in a boat. With a guide. When my mother took me fishing we had to wait in the car for our “Guide”, seemed like forever for the “Guide” to show up. I am telling you some of the “Guides” she hired would make my hair stand on end. Her guides were really old fishermen and women that fished for a living and definetely knew where to go. She would tell them what kind of fish she was looking for and
presto, she would have a string full and ready to go. Some of these tributaries were connected to the Mighty Mississippi and huge fish would migrate to these waters.
Alligator Gars, huge Buffalo, spoonbill and yellow cats. I always wondered why we went to waterways traveled by these monsters to get a small fish like in ponds and lakes. My Mother would smile and say she could always out do my Father’s fishing in size and quanity, bringing home Friday night supper. And she always did. Her platters of fried fish were huge, his not so big.
I don’t think he ever knew how she was out fishing him. And I never told.