Fishing Cars

When I was growing up in rural Texas we had �fishing cars�.

In those days there were three black and white TV channels, AM radio, eight track tape players, no video games, no cell phones, and cars that could actually be worked on � they didn�t have electronics in them. The engines were simple machines with room to get to everything. Every teenage boy had at least one car that he was working on, and sometimes even driving. We talked cars, lived cars and breathed engine exhaust. It was what we did.

Fishing cars were specialized clunkers. A fishing car couldn�t be a pickup truck for reasons I�ll explain later. It generally had four doors, the windows worked (hand cranked of course), had a three speed floor shifter, a bad clutch, burned almost as much oil as it did gasoline, put out a blue haze of smoke, had holes in the floor boards large enough you could stick a foot through. Held together by baling wire.

They were unregistered, uninsured, and never had a license plate in the same decade. Often they didn�t have license plates. We didn�t drive them on paved roads. Country boys could go anywhere in five counties and stay on dirt roads, only occasionally crossing over a paved road. We knew those roads so well that we usually drove them at night with no headlights; the headlights rarely worked anyway.

They were perfect machines for fishing trips. We knew fishing holes and how to get to them cross-country. These were cars we didn�t mind taking cross country. Our fishing holes were way down distant pastures and river bottoms. Every kid in those days had permission to fish everybody�s stock tanks, cross over everybody�s land. We didn�t leave litter behind, we always left gates as we found them, closed them if they were closed and sailed through them if they were open. The landowners were someone�s uncle or cousin or someone we hauled hay for each summer. We knew which pastures had mean bulls and we knew who would be cutting hay or plowing and where on any given day. We avoided the hay cutting or plowing, but not necessarily the bulls.

Generally there was one fishing car for every four friends. It was parked at one house but everyone showed up to work on it when necessary. Fuel and oil costs were shared, it might cost three bucks to fuel up for a trip. Gas was brought to the car, we couldn�t take the car to the gas station � paved roads you know. Throw some solid fiberglass poles with old tarnished pfleuger bait casting reels loaded with moldy braided line into the back seat, the rods always sticking out the passenger rear window - and take off. Beer would be hidden in the trunk under old tow sacks � pickups had no good place to hide beer and 16 year old boys needed that hiding place. Felt like they did anyway.

Travel dirt roads, then ruts across a pasture then bust through bottom land brush and eventually wind up down in the Bosque River bottom. Park the car, get the poles and minnow seine out. Seine up some minnows, bait the lines and cast them out. Pop a top and act cool. One of the guys would have a pack of camel unfiltereds and everyone lit up and acted even cooler. Every third or fourth trip we had to walk out to the nearest farm house and beg a ride to the nearest of our homes, get a pickup and logging chain and tow the fishing car out. They broke down a lot. This was one of the reasons we knew where the bulls were.

Summer days, faded-torn blue jeans, scruffy old cowboy boots, tee-shirts with the sleeves raggedly cut off, dirty-bent-broken-crowned cowboy hats that were our pride and joy, tall tales. Catch a few fish, build a fire after dark. Razz each other mercilessly and mock fight every twenty minutes or so. Eight track tape playing Credence Clearwater, catch more fish.

Bragging about how far we got with what girl, trashing the snotty seniors, and drink warm beer. Telling your buddies that you needed to find better friends then ducking the beer cans they threw at you. It was always Pearl or Lone Star and it was never cold � ice was harder to come by than beer. Get home at 2 in the morning and sneak in past the parents� bedroom.Slip into bed and think it was a pretty good day, sleep the deep sleep of the innocent, and young.

Those were fishing trips.

Those were fishing cars.

That's growing up in the good ole days! Kids today don't even know what a lug nut is. I grew up the same way except in a different part of the country. Mine was in Loxahatchee Fl. where we had 3 wheelers and "fishing cars" converted into swamp buggies with big tires.

Sounds like we grew up about the same time. Thanks for the long forgotten memories.

Now that was living back in those days. I remember them well. So many Cotton Mouths in those Tenn. River Bottoms we had to pull a hay trailer down to the river to sleep on at night instead of on the ground. Most of the time it was too wet to sleep on the ground; so the trailer worked out fine. We put four 2X4's in the staves on the wagon to drape a tarp over to help protect us from the elements if it came a storm. We never worried about getting out. It was all about getting in. If it was bad then one of the guys would take his tractor to the bottoms for security. The rest would go in the old clunkers. Sometime we would have to chain them all together and let the tractor pull us in.

All we had for a boat was two old 2 ton truck hoods welded together. You went in circles while paddling more than in a straight line. We used it to set drop line in the deeper parts of the swamps and old creek channels off the main river. Oxbow Lakes was our passion and getting to them was the fun part.

I am really sad for our younger generations who will never experience this great part of growing up. I have taken my grandchildren and great grandchildren back to these places that still exist and they didn't last long. Children have become too soft with the good life so to speak.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I truly enjoyed going back in time with you. You did a super descriptive job.

Donald

Thanks Ya'll - it's how I recall those days...

My Dad was a big Chrysler man, so all our cars had the big fins in the back. Perfect for fishing, because you could put one end of the cane poles inside the side mirror and the other end on the trunk side of the fins. Never lost a cane pole. Good old days.

Thanks for the memories. Sounds just like my life in the 60's.

Thanks for the memories! my Grand Dad took me to fish the oxbow lakes in northwest Mississippi in the early 1950's.

Grandpa had a an old 59 chevy station wagon, two tone, that was a "fishing car". We put a 16' alum V hull on top using luggage racks and rope tie downs, 5 hp Johnson motor pull start, a old battery, trolling motor that clipped on the bach,..and a little gas tank.

Nothing makes more noise that dropping a pair of needlenose pliers at 530am when ya just pull up to a brushpile,..I know.

We had to carry a 'church' key to open the beer. No such thing as a tab in my early days.

ours was a 1968 K 5 Chevy Blazer with the top missing, it was a chill ride on those early spring mornings but we could drive it right out onto the sand bar and back it into the edge of the river and fish from the back

I can remember going pond hopping in the country.
You went by the only store in the small town and there would be a half dozen old men sitting around drinking coffee.
After how are you doing.They asked what we were doing today.We would say going fishing.
They would say hope you have some good luck.
It was their land we were pond hopping on and they knew it and just gave us permission.
Of course we left no footprint behind.

My old fishing car was a 51 Ford sedan, flat head six cylinder, no headliner, after market seat covers to hold the stuffing in. Also a hole in the floorboard on the passenger side where you could see the road under your feet.
I replaced two clutches and a transmission, and water and fuel pumps, plus a radiator, so she was pretty good dependable transportation back then.
I painted it with a brush and she looked pretty sharp.
That thing could sling the gravel on those old back roads.
It had registration and was street legal, and I was able to make it to most of the lakes and rivers around my neck of the woods.
To this day I miss that old car.

During dove season, these cars were often turned into hunting wagons. I've heard rumors that birds were even shot while perching on high lines. Surely this didn't happen, though.

Oh, the memories this thread brought back! Our generation of young men did some crazy things, and sometimes I wonder how we ever survived to become adults....but oh, my....did we ever have fun in those old vehicles. Some of my very best fishing trips were in the late 50s and early 60s.