When I was 6, I was carted along to my brother's minor league baseball game. I wandered down to the riverbank below the ball field, and found an orange stake someone had anchored in the sand right near where the sewer drained into the river (I know).

On the stake was tied about 2 feet of fishing line and a rusty hook. I turned over logs and rocks until I found a little redworm. I put it on the hook, tossed it out in the water (it couldn't have been more than 6 inches off the bank), and was amazed to catch a 3-inch shad.

I thought that was the coolest thing ever. Wanting to squeeze as much play out of that shad as I could, I pitched it back in the water and watched my line move back and forth.

About 10 seconds later, the orange stake started to pull out of the sand. I grabbed it, pulled up the line, and found that my 3-inch shad had been magically replaced by a 14-inch bass. Six years old, and I had already learned more about the food chain than anything I'd get in grade school later on.

I lived only about 3 blocks away, so I did the logical thing: I ran home with the bass and put it in the bathtub. I always wondered what the business owners thought when they saw a six-year-old sprinting down the street flailing a fish about.

It swam around a bit, but died in about 5 minutes. They didn't teach us about chlorine until 5th grade.

JCB