Bearridge,
When I was about six, I found a nice straight willow, about an inch in diameter at the butt, and about seven feet tall. I cut it down, using a "Gentleman's fingernail knife"(Don't see those around any more.), carried it home, peeled it, and put it in the rafters of the chicken house.
I then started on my homemade reel. Which was basically a wooden thread spool(Don't see those around any more, either.) glued to a heavy copper wire with roofing tar. ( a common field expediant when one is six, and lives in the middle of nowhere.) This assembly was set in a frame of three wooden blocks, nailed together with shake nails( don't see them around any more.)
I loaded the reel with cotton string from the burlap bags(Don't see burlap bags much anymore.) Dad bought feed in. I think I tied three strings together. (The knots weren't a problem, because I hadn't figured out how to build a level wind for the reel at that time.)
The reel took most of the Summer to construct. When I finnished the reel, I retrieved the "rod" from the chicken house, and nailed the 'reel" to it with the shake nails, made guides from electric fence wire, stole a bobby pin from my Mother, for a hook(Don't see those around much anymore), bent into shape with pliers from the tractor's tool box, and sharpened on a rock. I tied on a twig for a bobber like my Grandad taught me, and a washer for a weight I was ready to go fishing!
I dug into the manure pile, and procured several "garden hackle", baited up, and was catching goldfish right and left, when my Father drove in from working in the field. And beat the doggie do-do out of me, for fishing in the stock tank, which he had stocked with goldfish to keep the water clean for the cattle.
But I learned my lesson; I fished from mid morning until just before noon, and then from just after noon until late afternoon. I never got caught again. And it was after all, catch and release.
The reel really sucked. I never actually used it, but I wish I had it now. It would be a relic from a kid with too much time on his hands.
A few years later, too much time on my hands would not be a problem!
