Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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Some time ago, I wrote about my dad’s love of fly fishing and how he tied his own flies. In winter he tied more flies than he could use the following summer, so he sometimes sold the flies to bait and tackle stores. They often wanted to buy more, but he wasn’t interested in going into the fly-making business. It was just a hobby for him.
Then sometime in the early 1940s, Ohio legalized float fishing. This allowed fishermen to attach a fishing line and baited hook to anything that would float. The fish would hook themselves. All the fisherman had to do was retrieve the float and he had the fish.
My dad had no interest in that kind of fishing. He thought it took the fun and the element of sport out of it. Just throw your floats into the water and then collect the fish. Where was the sport in that?
It wasn’t long, however, until a couple of fishing tackle stores contacted him and asked him to make some kind of float they could sell. About the same time, styrofoam was introduced, and my dad thought it would be the perfect material for float fishing. Although he wouldn’t use the floats, it would be fun to design them. So he went to work on it.
He fashioned a nifty styrofoam float, but once a fish was hooked, he needed a way to retrieve it. There was no telling where that float would go when a fish was pulling it. So he set out to design a retrieval system, and maybe that could add an element of skill to float fishing.
He took one of his old casting lures, one that was made of wood and was designed to float on the surface of the water. He removed the hooks and replaced them with an outrigger made of wire. The outrigger stuck out maybe 10 inches on each side of the lure, and there was a hook at each end.
The idea was to cast the lure close to a float, and then retrieve it so the outrigger would snag the float. The fisherman could then reel in the float and the fish. The theory was sound, but would it work?
We were going to try it out the following week, but late the next afternoon he got word that an Ohio Division of Wildlife truck had gone off the road at a bridge over Little Darby Creek, south of Marysville. It ended up in the creek. It was a tank truck loaded with large catfish. The air compressor got damaged, and it could no longer aerate the water in the tank. So the driver was instructed to release the fish into the creek. What a perfect place to try out the new float and retrieval system.
As soon as my dad got home from work that day, we headed for the accident site. The truck was still in the water, and we headed upstream. My dad baited the hook and tossed the float into the creek. Those catfish must have been hungry, for within a couple minutes that float took off into the deeper water.
He got out his casting rod to see how the retrieval system would work. His first cast was almost perfect, but the fish and float took off in another direction. So he reeled in the line to try again. About that time two cars drove up and parked along the road, and four fishermen got out and walked toward us. Apparently we weren’t the only ones to hear about the fish release.
My dad’s second cast was off target, and there was no way he could snag the float. Once again, he reeled in the lure. In the meantime, that fish and the float took off about 20 yards downstream. Within only a few minutes two more cars parked along the road, and their drivers hurried toward us. The creek bank was getting crowded, and almost all of the fishermen were pulling in fish right and left.
I don’t think I ever saw fishermen having more fun, and there was a lot of laughing. At the same time, I think they were also laughing at my dad, who was moving up and down the creek trying to snag that float with this casting rod. Finally, my dad sat down on the creek bank and started laughing. He looked at me and said, “So much for float fishing.” Then we headed back to the car.
That’s how our first experience with float fishing ended. Needless to say, that was also our last experience with float fishing.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com.