Memories

Good Friday Trouting

Growing up back home, one of the Easter traditions was a Good Friday trouting trip. These were sometimes a walk in the woods in back of home, or sometimes a trip in car to a roadside pond, but were often a whole family event.

The great thing about the whole trip was that you never knew from year to year what “kind” of trouting you were doing! Lots of Easter weekends it would be ice fishing, and on others you’d be fishing with a rod and reel on the shore of a completely ice free pond.

Of course one of the other memories of those days was the fact that it may not have been a rod and reel you saw people using. A lot of people used a bamboo pole. I’ve never actually tried it, and really haven’t seen it done in years, so now, thinking back on it, I’m a little puzzled on how people actually pulled a fish in. I assume once the hooked it, they had to pull the line in hand over hand!

The picture on the left wasn’t a Good Friday trip (at least I don’t think it was). It was taken I believe in 1969 (making me 4 at the time) when all of my Dad’s siblings except one (Herven) had gathered together for the first time in years, and the last time too as I know I never saw Aunt Mae again. I only have faint memories of it, but the whole family and some Aunt’s and Uncles made our way into Friggin’s (Fagan’s) Cove Pond for a family trip, so it reminds me somewhat of Good Friday fishing.

I’m not sure if the Good Friday trouting trips are as much of a tradition now as they were, I know as I got older, I always liked to go, but it became more with friends than family, but I guess that’s part of growing up.

Fishing isn’t the same in Nova Scotia for me, I don’t know where to go, and there are too many fish types to catch, and not know what to do with. Back home we had trout and that was about it. Still though, I think when Hayley gets a bit older, I may see if she’d like to go on a fishing trip.

Happy Easter everyone.

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

March 29, 2013 by Peter Smith Uncategorized 6

The Swizzle

Back not so long ago, after I was technically “grown up” (yeah right, as if that’ll ever happen), my buddy Bernard had a Sega Genesis. Like a lot of things in rural Newfoundland of the like, it didn’t necessarily have a steady place in any home though, as it was always borrowed by somebody, lots of times that somebody being me.

My favorite game on it was called Landstalker, an RPG that I played for hours, and cursed the zone known as Greenmaze over and over. This was before the internet, and figuring out how to play and finish the game was done all by yourself or with friends.

But the best memories of playing the Genesis were over at my cousin and friend Derek’s house. We’d have it hooked up to the old floor model TV, and a group of us would take turns playing PGA European Tour Golf. Usually it was Derek, Eric, Cory Avery and I, and we’d play for hours. But the thing I remember most, other than Derek tilting the controller trying to make the ball turn, is Cory’s exclamations. “Look at him swizzle that one in there!”, “Watch me swizzle this one boys!”. It became part of our vocabulary (reminds me, will have to tell you about the word “git” sometime) from then on, anytime we’d try to make something work, or fit, or really even go somewhere, we were swizzling it.

Would be fun to have it hooked up now and share a beer with the boys and try to swizzle a few shots in!

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

March 9, 2013 by Peter Smith Uncategorized 1

Painting the boat

In fall of the year, we all pulled our boats up on the beach, and turned them upside down for winter. Typically this became somewhat of a social event, as one man can’t pull a boat up by himself. We’d put down some time washed round sticks, and some wet slippery slabs and get a few people on each side and pull it up, and then most people on one side, with a couple on the back to brace it as we’d turn it over onto some supports. Often we’d pull up several boats at once, and a few beer would be drunk, drank, drinked, whatever the right derivation is, and a few yarns would be told.

Once spring came, preparations began to get the boat in the water again. This involved scraping the flaked paint off, adding oakum where necessary, and repainting with marine paint. This chore often fell to the kids of the family, and really wasn’t that hard, nor onerous so, I at least, didn’t mind it.

However paining a boat does involve one piece of knowledge that apparently for one year at least I forgot. I took the paint and oakum down to the beach, and proceeded to scrape the boat, and give it a nice new white coat of paint. Dad went down later that day or the next to check on my work, and came back laughing his head off. I of course asked him what was so funny. He said “Well you did a good job on the boat! Too bad it was Ralph’s!”

While Dad is gone now, he never let me forget that, nor will Eric I’m sure, as its his favorite story. Maybe someday I’ll get a boat back home and Vince can return the favour! Miss you Dad, and Ralph too!

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

March 4, 2013 by Peter Smith Uncategorized 2

The Three Dons

This is curling season in Canada. The Scotties Tournament of Hearts just ended, and starting tomorrow the Tim Horton’s Brier begins. Curling brings back memories of growing up and watching Sportsweekend and other sports programming on CBC on Saturday afternoon and weekends. Back then every weekend, there was a 1 hour curling program on every Saturday evening in winter. What was more memorable than the curling in some ways were the hosts.

No they didn’t make you any offers you couldn’t refuse, but it seemed comical that all three hosts were named Don! Don Wittman, Don Duguid and Don Chevrier. Curling is a big part of the canadian sports scene, and these guys introduced us to the likes of Al Hackner, the Wrench, Ed Werenich, and the ever so quiet Russ Howard. I’m not sure what they squeezed into their hour long show back then, but I remember watching religiously as a kid. I remember dad laying on the couch, me laying on the floor, with my feet over the furnace grate, and watching closely. Not only is it a fun sport to watch, but brings back great memories of growing up.

Looking forward to watching more this weekend and next week!

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

March 1, 2013 by Peter Smith Uncategorized 0

When fish were big and boys were small

One of the staple things we had growing up was fresh, frozen and salted cod. Here in Nova Scotia haddock reigns supreme, but nothing to me beats the taste of a fresh out of the water cod. Generally the casual fisher back home used a hand line with a traditional or Norwegian jigger. We’d lower the line overboard till it hit bottom and then pull up a fathom or two and start jigging back and forth till we hit a fish, then we’d pull it up and into the boat to be immediately cleaned.

I can still remember the feeling when you hit a big one, or as dad called them, a growler. You’d be jigging the line back and forth and then suddenly you’d bring up solid. Sometimes they were so hard to pull in. And if you happened to hook a mackerel well, then your line was on times tight and then loose as they’d swim madly like a fly fish.

And of course in the days before nylon line, we’d have the older cord, everyone had notches in the gunnels of their boats where the line wore into the wood.

This one year, for whatever reason, dad decided to try a trawl. Essentially it was a line with 50 smaller lines attached, with baited hooks on each. We set it out near our marks somewhere and came back a day or two later. Well we were pulling it in and caught a few fish, and then… it appeared. As you can see on the left, the fish was bigger than me! This was probably about 1974 or 75 I think, I’m pretty sure it was before my sister was born, making me 9 or 10 in this picture. The cod weighed in at 65 pounds!

We cleaned it and tried to salt it, unfortunately it was so thick it didn’t take well, or we didn’t leave it long enough, and some spoiled, but we still got quite a few meals!

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

February 16, 2013 by Peter Smith Uncategorized 0

It Only Happened Once

One of the infuriating things about my buddy Eric was that he ALWAYS beat me trouting. We have trouted in some pretty out of the way places back home, scrabbling over deadfalls, walking through the thick woods where there was no path, one day, maybe more, taking off our or at least my shirt(s) and wetting it in a bog hole to get cool. And I loved it, its a peaceful experience just being out there with no noises but birds and insects. Well except for getting the crap scared out of you when a snipe flew up in your face! Holy god they startled ya!

I remember one summer trip in particular, Eric and I got up about 6 and headed off in the country, making our way to Smith’s Long Pond. I know he definetly beat me again that day, can’t say how by how many, but I think the most memorable part was Vince Smith looking at us when we walked out the path and said “Trouting? TODAY? I looked at the thermometer on my patio at about 3 o’clock and it was 34 degrees!”. You can only imagine how hot we were after beating through the woods. And we both had raccoon faces after from our glasses blocking the sun.

Once though and only once I beat him. It was different than those trips because it was an ice fishing trip to Island pond. I’ve never really had a lot of luck ice fishing, but it was always a great day to get out for a boil up if nothing else. Island pond could also be reluctant to give up trout at the best of times, but because they were so good, we kept trying. This one day, we were fishing down the end of the pond, and I can recall beating him vividly. The tally was pretty easy to take though, I got one, he got none.

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

January 26, 2013 by Peter Smith Uncategorized 3

The Old Wood Stove

The huge storm back home in Newfoundland got me thinking about how nice it is to be hunkered down with a nice wood fire when a raging blizzard blows around outside.

There was always just something different about the heat, hearing the wood crackling and popping. When I was younger, most everyone had an old wood range similar to this one in their kitchen, with a wood box nearby. I can still remember the names things had, damper, lifter, poker.

We’d open up the firebox either with the damper on the top, or from the door in front to feed in wood and slabs. The oven would be stogged with bread baking nearly every day, and water on the side in the tank staying warm for washing, or whatever else.

The kettle was always on, and always full, and ready for a cup of tea, and underneath the oven, our ski-doo boots would be warming or drying after we’d come in from sliding on the old coaster, or making forts and tunnels in the drifts. Up top our mitts and socks and vamps would likely be drying in the warmer.

One of the dampers often had multiple rings, and we’d have one open with the old wire handheld toaster over the top, toasting some of the fresh homemade bread and coating it with butter and molasses.

Seems like others remember too, I saw this range when I was looking at appliances this past fall. Nice to be able to keep the old alive with the new, though a bit out of my price range.

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

January 11, 2013 by Peter Smith Uncategorized 7

Bus Rides

When I first started school, we were bussed to a school called Balbo Elementary in Shoal Harbour, named after an Italian General who landed and departed from there in the 1930’s. I can’t say I remember much about school there, nothing memorable right now anyway, but I do remember this one huge bump on the ride home that made us all come out of our seats, more so I bet because it was only a few people on a mostly empty bus, so less weight. Anyway, I remember it well, I swear I once hit my head on the roof, tho my memory may be faulty (perhaps from the bump?)

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

December 18, 2012 by Peter Smith Uncategorized 0

Outlet….

I’ve created many blogs over the years, and always felt like I abandoned them. I think its mainly because I felt I had to write for others, and while my interests are varied, it never felt like everything belonged together. I felt noone else had any interest in what I was writing.

But I think what I really need is somewhere to just write a few words here and there, so lets try this again.

The blog is titles Random Island Memories, and a lot of my posts will be about growing up back home on Random Island, but be forewarned, I may veer off on tangents and be prone to rant occasionally.

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

December 18, 2012 by Peter Smith Uncategorized 1

Good Friday Trouting

The Swizzle

Painting the boat

The Three Dons

When fish were big and boys were small

It Only Happened Once

The Old Wood Stove

Bus Rides

Outlet….

Random Posts

Attiq Sports

Memories

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Random Posts