This picture was published in the Caribou County Sun on August 13, 2009, the same day as dad’s obituary was printed in the paper. The caption underneath the picture (clicking on the picture brings up a full-sized view) reads:

WORKING THE WATER — While fishing has slowed down on the Blackfoot River, a fly fisher worked the deeper holes above the narrows over the weekend. A week before he said he landed a 20-inch native cuthroat. The river has special restrictions and is catch and release water.

Dad is probably rolling over in his grave. The Blackfoot River is catch-and-release? When he was able to fish, he seldom fished anywhere else besides the Blackfoot River. He knew every hole and nook and cranny in the river from the mine down to the paved road and patiently and intently fished every one of them. We had trout often for dinner as I was growing up and all of it most likely came out of the Blackfoot River.

In addition to the river above the reservoir, he also liked to fish below the dam and had one specific place he would fish. He delighted to tell the story about the Monsanto man from St. Louis who loved to fish. He came out on business and dad was delegated to show him a good fishing experience. Dad and another man from the plant took him out to that special place below the dam and set him up. He apparently knew a bit about fishing as he quickly caught his first rainbow trout. Dad had provided him with an ice chest to keep his fish. Within a couple of hours, the St. Louis fisherman had caught his limit. Dad and his helper cleaned the fish, took them home, and put them in the freezer leaving the fisherman to continue fishing.

They returned and he’d caught another limit’s worth of fish. Over the next couple of days dad and his friend cleaned and froze a lot of fish which were then packed in dry ice and shipped to the man’s home.

Catch-and-release wasn’t in dad’s vocabulary, nor was it in his father’s lexicon, either.

Grandfather Smith lost the sight in one eye in the late 1950’s when a metal splinter lodged in his eye. In his older age he lost most of the sight in the other eye through macular degeneration. His son (and my uncle) Ross had a stocked pond up on the Williams Creek Road in Cleveland. The fish were regularly fed and there were some pretty big brown trout in that pond. Grandfather Smith wanted to go fishing. As he was now in his 90’s, my uncle sat him in a chair at the edge of the pond and explained catch-and-release. Uncle Ross returned a bit later to find Grandfather had caught and set aside a nice mess of fish that he expected Uncle Ross to clean so they could be eaten for dinner!

It definitely ran in the family for a couple of generations.