The Sportsman's Corner
By Bob Cox, Mountain Valley News staff
I love to stop by various fishing derbies and watch the youngsters catch fish, but I have a special affinity with the derby held each year in Paonia.
Probably the biggest reason I like the Paonia event so much is its name. A day of fishing in honor of Mark Twain’s character, Huckleberry Finn, seems a very fitting thing to me.
I think it is a shame that so few young people have read either The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Of course, Huckleberry Finnwas written in the first person of Finn himself, and he reminded us early that, “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” People have become way too sensitive about some of the language and lifestyle descriptions Huck used.
During my formative years, one of the many service organizations sponsored the annual “Huck Finn Day.” All of us showed up dressed like Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer or Becky Thatcher. We were not allowed to use rods and reels, only cane or willow poles and homemade or cork bobbers. The bamboo rods that could be found inside carpet rolls at the time could bring a premium in trading material.
Those of us who dressed like Huck often supplemented our costumes with a “beanie shooter” and a corncob pipe, both of which would be considered evidence of criminal activity today. In fact, I will abstain from making any further description of those two items for fear of being accused of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
For several years as a young adult, I belonged to an organization that sponsored similar events in Eastern Colorado. There, too, I encouraged the perusal of both of Twain’s novels. I have read both completely a few times and have thumbed through them several other times. I still find myself thinking about Huckleberry during a quiet fishing trip now and then.
While reading a couple of classics is certainly a worthwhile endeavor, the important thing here is that some youngsters get the opportunity to go fishing, and more importantly, catch some fish.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, through the Hotchkiss Fish Hatchery, is very generous in the stocking of fish in the pond near Volunteer Park, and it does not take long for the kids to find out what the best bait is. Many attendees at the most recent event had their limits in a matter of an hour or so. The giggles and the screams are invigorating. Watching the adults try to resist the temptation to grab the pole sometimes becomes humorous. Watching the kids is always priceless.
I only hope each of them can get as much enjoyment from fishing as I have and I hope that maybe a couple of them will gather up a copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and lay back under a shade tree and let their mind wander back to the days when a young man could have an adventure. Maybe they can become part of a lazy day, floating down the Mississippi River on a raft. In Huck’s words: “We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud…"
