When he was a boy, Pat Hanby would catch fish after fish from the Kings River and never carry a fishing pole.
Hanby and some of the other kids around Berryville, where he grew up, used a wooden fishing invention Hanby's dad fashioned from a piece of white pine. A "paddle," Hanby calls it. It looks like a paint brush, or a small paddle, carved out of wood that was smoothed and tapered on the end. Fishing line with hook attached was wrapped around the end.
A little practice was all it took for Hanby and his pals to pull off a length of line and throw a hook and live crawdad across the stream. A toss sent line coiling off the end of the paddle like line comes off the spool of a modern-day spin-cast reel.
That was back in the 1950s. Hanby, now 77 and living in Springdale, still has one of those fishing devices. The angler, hunter and avid golfer demonstrated he can still cast like he did decades ago. Out in his backyard, Hanby was happy to show the technique, making cast after accurate cast.
Long ago, when his crawdad splashed into the water, Hanby would tuck the handle of the fishing paddle into the waist band of his pants. That left both hands free to work the crawdad through the water and pull in a hard-fighting smallmouth or largemouth bass.
Thin monofilament fishing line was hard on the hands with an angry bass tugging at the end. Cuts on fingers and palms were a given.
"If you came home with cut-up hands, it meant you had a good day of fishing," Hanby said.
"Best I can remember there were eight or 10 people around Berryville who used these," he said, showing the device. He was about 8 years old when he first used the fishing device. "We'd take these and go catch a bunch of crawdads, day or night."
His dad, Carroll Hanby, owned Hanby Lumber Co. in Berryville. The business was founded in 1856 and is going strong today.
"We always had a bunch of lumber. He got to fooling around one day and made it. It just spiraled from there," the younger Hanby said. "He worked six days a week, so the only day he could fish was on Sunday."
"You'd cast that crawdad upstream and let it drift down," he coached. "You could see the bass hit it."
That was not the time to set the hook. It took a few seconds for the fish to swallow the crawdad. Then was the instant to yank the line. In those days, Kings River anglers were after fish to eat. Bass and goggle-eye all went on the stringer. Hanby thinks the daily limit then was 10 bass.
"In those days, monofilament line was a lot stiffer. Sometimes you'd get a big old catfish and that was really hard on your hands," Hanby said.
So was catching crawdads. He and his pals searched under rocks for the biggest craws they could find. Big ones were the best bass bait. "Those little ones, the goggle-eye and bluegill would eat them up before the bass could get 'em."
Pinchers of those big crawdads clamped down hard on young fingers at bait-gathering time. Crawdads were easiest to catch at night, Hanby said. They'd put one hand out in front of the crawdad "to get its attention," then they'd catch it with the other hand.
Fishing the Kings River in the 1950s was like any fishing. "We had good days and bad," Hanby said.
Most of the time they wade-fished. Now and then, they'd do a float trip in a fiberglass canoe.
No telling how many fish Hanby caught with those hand-made fishing paddles. He used one all through his childhood and into his teenage years.
Nowadays, Hanby fishes mostly at Beaver Lake from a comfortable boat with lures, not live crawfish. He'll cast a modern rod and reel, but will always remember those Kings River trips, happy to come home with knicked-up hands.
Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected]
Sports on 03/26/2019