Pocket Tackle Box, Pawpaw, and Wild Blackberries

Pocket Tackle Box:  a half-hour's work.

        Headed out to the creek for a trial run of the pocket tackle box.    I made these for my boys and myself a few weeks ago.  Hemp line, cork and corncob floats, sinkers from .36 and .44 caliber balls, and hooks I forged from old coathangers.  The whole tin fits in a waistcoat pocket.

The Setup

       All I brought with me was the pocket tackle box, my knapsack (tinderkit, boiler, tankard, sewing kit), belt knife, pocket knife and cane pole.  This pole is actually my son's.  It is about seven feet long.  The cane I cut for my rod is about twelve feet in length.  Its easier to get the line out into deeper water, but hard to get through the woods with it.  I cut the cane from a brake we found along Sligo Creek back in March.  I let it dry for about two months out in the sun, before I put it to use.

Brewing some tea

     After I threw the line in, I fixed a small fire for a cup of tea.  The tinder ball is the inner bark of a swamp oak.  It burst into flames after it caught the spark.

Had a visitor come calling during tea.

      Since I now now there are crawdads at this spot, I might have to bring a sein net next time.  A few hours work would fill a pot or a bait bucket when I was a kid.

Pawpaw, asimina triloba

     Though I didn't catch anything today, it was time well spent.  Found out that the .36 caliber ball is too much weight of the line, corncobs get saturated very quickly, and there are abundant pawpaw and blackberries here.   I'm hoping to plant mainly trees and foliage indigenous to Virginia in our yard.  I figure God knew what he was doing and put the plants here that would do best here.  The pawpaw are fast growing, so I'll harvest a few saplings and plant them in the back corner of the yard.  They should provide good shade and bear fruit in a few years, being out from under the forest canopy.

Wild blackberries, rubus alleghensiensus.

            I read that you want to transplant the blackberry chutes after summer when there are no berries, so I'll have to wait on that.  There's already fruit on the plants I found here.

                                                                       -Cincinnatus


         "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth...O LORD, how manifold are thy works!  In wisdom thou hast made them all: the earth is full of thy riches..."
                                                                        -Psalm 104: 14, 24