1987 - Ice Fishing with my Brothers

Mike and Henry - friends from work, Esther, and my brothers George and Kenny

My brother George loves to ice fish and on occasion I would meet up with him and do some ice fishing.  But it would have to be a sunny warm day for me to go out there.  This day my younger brother Kenny joined us and a couple of people I knew at Waters showed up as well.



Esther with her pickerel



1980s - Mackerel, Cod, and Pollock

My catch: mackerel, cod and pollock

Esther with her first mackerel - great hat!

I did go deep sea fishing once with people I worked with at Waters Corp.  It was a lot of fun, but I did not catch anything very big.  I gave the mackerel away but kept the cod and pollock to eat.

1970s - Flounder

Jim, Esther Mary and Dick and lots of flounder

My sister, Mary, and her husband Dick lived in Quincy near the ocean.  My first husband, Jim, and I would go to visit them and we would go fishing for flounder.  We both had inflatable rafts that we would put on top of our cars and with our hands out of the car windows we'd hold onto the rafts' rope to keep the rafts from blowing off!  We only had a short distance to go, but it wasn't easy holding on with the rope cutting into our hands. 
On this day the fishing was very good and as we caught the flounder we put the fish on a stringer tied to the outside of the raft.  Unfortunately, either Jim or I didn't tie our stringer very well and we lost it in the ocean.  Dick and Mary were kind enough to let us put our catch onto their stringer.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but when it was time to come in, the fish weighed too much.  Dick and Mary couldn't paddle in as the fish were too heavy, so they had to put the stringer into the raft right on top of their legs - ICK!
We went back to their apartment and got busy filleting our catch and wrapping it up for the freezer.  After all of that filleting, none of us had an appetite to eat flounder that night - so we froze all the fillets and enjoyed them on many a night after that.

1972 - Cod - 22 -1/2 pounds

Esther with 22-1/2 lb Cod Fish

As a teenager, I went out on a fishing charter from Rockport Mass. The fishing boat went way out in the ocean and when the boat stopped everyone dropped their lines over the side to fish.  I had never "bottom-fished" before so I did not know what to expect.  It  was unbelievable - as soon as the lines reached the bottom, people started catching cod and haddock.  I waited  a few minutes and then pulled up on my line but I couldn't move it.  I tried and tried to no avail so I called the first mate over.  He pulled on my line and said "You must be hung up on the bottom, I'll come back to help you when I get a chance".  So I kept trying to pull my line up but couldn't, and I was frustrated that everyone was catching fish but me. The mate was too busy taking the fish off to help me. Eventually, the first mate came back to my side of the boat and asked if anyone was hung up - so I said I was.  He told me to keep reeling.  The next thing I knew this large cod came to the surface and my line along with several other lines from the other side of the boat were all wrapped around this fish.  The mate pulled the fish up and untangled the lines and determined it was my fish! I couldn't believe it 22-1/2 lbs - this is the largest fish I have ever caught.  I also won the pool that day for the largest fish.  The experienced fishermen on the boat weren't happy with me especially when I said I had never fished in the ocean before.  I guess it was just beginner's luck!

1964 - My Brown Trout

Esther's 11 inch Brown Trout June 1964

The only trout I ever caught as a child was this one.  I remember the water was low and clear, and I saw this fish swimming down the river.  I threw a worm right in front of it and couldn't believe it when the fish grabbed the worm.  With one quick pull, I pulled the trout right out of the river and it went flying through the air and landed in our garden.  I didn't know what kind of fish it was, so I ran up to the house to show my parents.  They told me it was a brown trout, so I kept it and really enjoyed eating it.
Not long after this, my childhood fishing adventures came to an end when my parents bought a house in another part of town, and I no longer had a river in my backyard to fish in.

1960 - EEL

George, Mary, Esther holding father's eel

My father sometimes would catch eel in the river.  I remember one time he came up to show us an eel he caught which had wrapped itself all around his arm as he tried to take it off the hook! Here is a picture of a particularly large one he caught - over 3 ft. long. My father kept it and my mother had to cook it.  My mother wouldn't eat it but she said we kids did.  I don't know about my brother or sister, but I don't remember eating it and don't think I would eat one today!

1950s - My Fishing Partner - George

1955 George 3, Esther 2

I have a brother who is just 1 year older than me.  I learned at an early age that I had to compete with him at almost everything!  When it came to fishing, this was no exception - who would catch the most fish, who would catch the biggest fish, etc.  I remember one time when we were fishing together along the Assabet River I was catching fish and George wasn't.  So when I went to rebait my hook, he took my place.  I didn't let that bother me, I simply went over to where he had been fishing and I started catching fish there and he still wasn't catching!  So my brother quickly learned that when it came to fishing, I could out-fish him!

1950s - Hornpout

My mother, grandfather and father

My family was instrumental in my interest in fishing.  My father taught me how to fish and when my grandfather came to visit he would often say "Go get your fishing pole" and I would run to the garage and grab one of our long bamboo poles and go fishing while my grandfather watched me catch sunfish or perch.  Since we were Catholic, we had to eat fish on Fridays, so of course we liked to eat the fish that we caught --and my poor mother had to clean and cook them.  The fish we caught frequently were hornpout and here is a picture of a very large one that my father caught.

Hornpout

With hornpout, you have to be careful picking them up to avoid getting stabbed with one of the spikes in their fins.  My mother had a unique way of dealing with these spikes when she was cleaned the fish - she pinned the hornpout to a cutting board with an ice pick right through the fish's head!  She then filleted the fish without getting stabbed.

1957 - Frank Fishing

Frank with his catch

Frank had many fishing adventures as a child, but this is the only picture we could come up with.  Here he is in Northwood, New Hampshire fishing a pond near his Aunt and Uncle's farm.  Not sure what kind of fish he caught in this picture, but it looks like he was having a good time!