The Slippery Rock Sportsman’ Club had a great facility on the outskirts of town. It was about a half hour bicycle ride from our house and I spent a lot of time there during the summer. There was a trap range, an archery range, a rifle range, and a clubhouse, but my favorite facility was a 15-acre pond with a swimming area. There was also a floating platform from which you could dive. The pond was stocked with largemouth bass and bluegills. On a typical summer weekday morning I would pack a light lunch in a brown paper bag, put on my swimsuit, a tee shirt and tennis shoes, grab my fishing rod and tackle box, and mount my bicycle (holding lunch, rod and tackle box in my fingers underneath the handlebars). Thus prepared I was ready for a relaxing day of both swimming and fishing.
Saturdays, however, were reserved for watching TV. That was the day that two of my favorite shows were on. The Flying Fisherman featured Gadabout Gaddis. Roscoe “Gadabout” Gaddis (see above photo) was a pilot who flew to some of the most exotic places in the country in his single-engine Piper Cherokee to film exciting fishing expeditions. There was trout fishing on the upper Missouri in Montana, fishing for stripers off the Cape Cod coast, bass in Lake Powell, or fly fishing for bone fish in the Florida keys, just to name a few episodes. Gadabout would even show you how to make your own lures to take bluegills from a farm pond. He was like a kindly uncle or grandfather who wore a white cowboy hat and horn rimmed glasses and smoked a pipe (I guess that’s why I eventually wore the hat and smoked the pipe – I already had the glasses). A young boy could truly experience fishing the world through his eyes. Plus he flew his own airplane. Nobody did that in those days – at least nobody I knew. I always awaited his show with baited breath (no pun intended).
Later on that day it was time for ABC’s The American Sportsman with Curt Gowdy. It was equally mesmerizing. The theme song is permanently imprinted on my mind. This show was a mixture of both hunting and fishing experiences. Curt always had a famous guest on the show – either an actor or a sports star. I recall Robert Stack and Ted Williams among many others. Like Gadabout Gaddis, they were after elusive prey in remote locations. The difference was that this show had a much larger budget, being a network program. Curt and his co-stars would take some amazing journeys after cutthroat trout in the Rockies or grizzly bears in Alaska. I wasn’t that interested in the exotic big game but I loved the fishing shows no matter where they were or what they were after. I also recall a neat episode where they went after ring-necked pheasant in South Dakota. Unlike my experiences with pheasants, they seemed to kick one out from under every corn stalk.
Back to a weekday trip to the Sportsman’s Club. On this particular day I was up early and at the pond by 9AM. I had a pretty specific routine for fishing this pond, or any pond for that matter. I was a creature of habit and I always figured that if I had caught fish in one location before, I would do so again. I began by going after bass in the shallows, near some lily pads. I tried several lures. My favorites were plastic worms but they weren’t working that day. A flatfish enticed a few bites but it kept dredging up weed from the bottom of the pond. A floating rapala finally produced results. The pond probably held some bass over 18 inches but I never caught any. I was satisfied this day with the action on some 10-12 inchers. It was fun but as the day grew warmer the action slowed. As the bass headed for deeper water I moved to where the bluegills congregated and had some fun catching some nice sized panfish. They would hit on small spinners but I loved to catch them on the surface with small poppers. I didn’t have a fly rod at that time so it was a good thing the fish weren’t far from shore. I developed a technique where I could cast a popper with my spin-casting rig about 20 feet. I would strip some line off the reel and hold it in my left hand. Then I would wildly flail the rod with my right hand, releasing the line at just the moment when the popper headed toward the water. I’m sure it looked pretty strange but it was effective.
As mentioned earlier, my brother taught me everything I knew about fishing. He was a fan of the closed spin-casting reel so I was too. He favored Pflueger reels. Not sure if it was the similarity to our last name or not but he loved his green Pflueger Galaxy. Like most kids my age I began my fishing career with a Zebco 66 but I had saved my lawn mowing money and bought a brand new red Pflueger Saturn. This was a step down from the more expensive Galaxy but I loved the red color and it was a Pflueger just like Johnny’s. (At the time I had no idea how much fun I would have years later with more sophisticated equipment like a spinning rod or a fly rod in my hands.)
By this time I was getting pretty hot and it was time to eat lunch and get cooled off with a swim at the beach area. Other swimmers were beginning to come out from town and I noticed that my older sister, Barbara, and her best friend Sandy were there. Seven years my senior, Barbie could drive at that time and I’m pretty sure she was driving a Chevy Corvair on this day. She and Sandy were sunning themselves on the floating dock and I swam out to join them. There were a number of others on the dock and kids were jumping or diving from it into the murky waters of the pond. I was too young at that time to care much about girls in bathing suits but something about Sandy’s suit that day caught my eye (and most everyone else’s too). It was a tank suit but only had a single strap that went over one shoulder. I’m sure it was the latest thing out as Sandy seemed to be on the cutting edge of fashion. As I lay on the dock on my stomach (to assure a nice even sunburn – I never tanned and that was before “sunblock” was envisioned), Sandy climbed the ladder onto the dock. I was looking straight at her as she came out of the water and that single strap failed, revealing her left breast about two feet from my nose. I guess this could be termed a “wardrobe malfunction” ala Janet Jackson’s at the super bowl. Even though I was not that interested in the opposite sex at that age this was a big deal. It was the first time I had ever seen a woman’s bare breast and to this day it is embedded in my memory. I guess Sandy could feel the draft created by the malfunction and as her eyes met mind I think both of our mouths dropped open. She immediately sank back into the water where she made the appropriate adjustment to her suit. I turned away as though I hadn’t seen anything and I don’t think anyone else knew what happened. By the time Sandy re-emerged with both breasts covered, I jumped off the dock on the opposite side and swam back to shore.
Picking up my rod, I headed for the shoreline at the opposite end of the lake to see if I could coax a bass from the deeper water. However, my heart wasn’t in my fishing - it seemed it was still up in my throat.
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