By the time I reached the ripe old age of 13, I had long since given up comic books. The Lone Ranger and others had given way to the big three, as I called them. The big three being Outdoor Life, Field and Stream and Sports Afield magazines that I subscribed to with my hard earned odd job money. A series of articles on fly fishing captured my interest. The more I read about it, the more I felt I needed a fly rod. So, one summer afternoon, after my mowing and lawn trimming chores were done, I pedaled my bike to town and our local sports shop. I must have spent hours looking at the selection of fly rods. They only had a few, but when you’re spending your whole life savings, you want to be sure. In the end, I biked home with a new fly rod, some panfish lures and a reel for my rod. When my dad came home from work, I proudly showed him my purchase. That went like this. “What the h***’s the matter with you, boy? There ain’t no trout streams here. You already busted a steel rod landing a bass”. Nevertheless, after supper dad and I boarded the old Ford model “A” we used as a fishing and hunting car, and pointed her west, toward our favorite fishing spot. Dad started working his way along the west bank, casting bass lures as near to stumps and logs in the water as he could, hunting for a hungry bass. I was content to stand on the east end of the bridge and dabble a panfish fly around old bridge pilings sticking up from the water. I wanted to get used to handling my new rod, and was catching lots of bluegills. Since they were on the small side, I released them. Just as I was about to reel in my line and move to a new location, the water furiously gurgled and boiled where my lure had been. My line knifed through the water, rod bowing to near the breaking point. Dad saw me hopping around yelling, and quickly took in his line and ran up on the bridge, shouting advice as he ran. “Don’t give him slack, hold your rod tip down, keep him away from those pilings and rocks”. Dad climbed down the bank, then took out his short handled landing net. “Steer him over here”. Dad scooped up a nice largemouth bass, no record breaker, but big for this pond. Well, I couldn’t wait to get home and show mom. Dad had caught a couple smaller bass that went probably 11/2 to 2 pounds. Mine was a good 3 pounds, maybe more. That old Ford just wouldn’t go fast enough for me, that evening. That next spring, my trusty fly rod and I went carp fishing in a slough near our house, early one Saturday morning. It was a very short trip. I barely got my line out and settled down when a carp took my bait. So, there I was, walking home with a 13 pound carp in one hand, and a totally busted fly rod in the other. As I was dressing out the carp, my dad was looking at what was left of my fly rod. He gave me that know-it-all chuckle of his saying, “I told you so”.