A Little Bit Like Home

Cafe Wisdom and River Truth

The State Line Cafe sat just north of Hopkins on Highway 148, close enough to the Missouri-Iowa line that the name was not trying hard to be clever. It served good food, but if your ears were open, it also served wisdom from the regulars who came in for coffee or a meal.

One morning, my ears opened when I heard one fellow mention using Preparation H with stink bait to get fish to bite. According to the testimony offered at the cafe, Preparation H contained some sort of oil fish could not resist.

I considered the possibility this was true. I also considered the possibility these men were fabricating a method for their own future enjoyment. If I tried it and admitted it, the story would be told again and again. Worse yet, it might become a nickname.

I shuddered at the thought of being called Prep, H or, if things went especially poorly, Preparation H.

But the seed had been planted.

There comes a time in summer when the farm does not exactly slow down, but it exhales. The corn and beans are too tall to cultivate, the wheat has been harvested, the alfalfa is between cuttings and football practice is still a few weeks away.

That brief pause explains why, one evening after chores and supper, I grabbed the tackle box and the old heavy rod I had inherited from a cousin, complete with a Zebco 33 reel, and headed to the 102 River.

I was 16, old enough to drive myself to the river and young enough to believe a stringer full of fish was reasonable. Catfish, carp — anything with fins would have been welcome. I was willing to accept whatever the river wanted to surrender.

The stretch of the 102 I knew was on the west side of the bottom ground, near where the old bridge had once crossed to the Coleman place. By then, the bridge was gone, washed out years earlier. What remained was a familiar bend, with sandbars and small trees on our side, a dirt bank on the other, and enough mosquitoes and dragonflies to keep a person from feeling alone.

Before I left, I found the tube in the medicine cabinet and inspected the label. Sure enough, shark liver oil was listed as an ingredient. The cafe experts may have been setting a trap, but the label seemed to be on their side.

I dropped the tube into my tackle box and vowed I would never tell anyone at the State Line Cafe what I was doing, even if it worked. Especially if it worked.

At the river, I tied on a treble hook, added dough bait and coated it with a generous amount of what might best be described as derriere repair. As I worked, a small glob dropped into the water. Within seconds, minnows rushed to the site like bugs to a security light and devoured what little ointment remained. This seemed to confirm nothing but success ahead for the night.

Before casting out, I lowered the baited hook near the bank. The minnows returned with reinforcements and cleaned the hook in seconds. This should have concerned me. Instead, I chose to view it as confirmation.

I rebaited, added more Preparation H and cast into the middle of the stream. The water was low and slow, moving just enough to remind a person it was a river and not a mud puddle.

I waited.

No bite.

When I reeled in, the hook was empty. So I tried again, this time with a bobber. Reeling in, I found an empty hook again. I switched to a rubber worm, then a lure, then anything else that might change the evening’s direction.

But the river remained unimpressed.

I stayed until the light began to slip away. The mosquitoes kept their appointment. The dragonflies continued their patrol. The 102 held whatever fish it had and surrendered none of them.

As I drove home, I felt disappointed. I had imagined fish on a stringer, maybe even supper the next night. Instead, I had an empty stringer, a tackle box that smelled faintly suspicious and a lesson I was not going to share.

When I got home, I returned the Preparation H to the medicine cabinet and kept my mouth shut.

I proved one thing that night: I was a fisher, but not a catcher.

And I never admitted to anyone at the State Line Cafe what I had tried.

Tom Brand is a St. Joseph, Missouri, writer whose latest book, “You Have To Leave If You Want To Come Back,” is available at RichardsonPress.com. He no longer keeps derriere repair or any other ointment in his tackle box.