Minnows

Little things can evoke such vibrant memories. 

One morning, I had to empty the ice bin into the sink.  As the cubes melted, they reminded me of minnows... the small, silvery ones that we used to catch on the Chesapeake Bay when I was little. 

We used to take stale bread down to my grandfather's dock and put it into a wire minnow net - basically 2 pieces of large bore screening sewn together.  There we would slowly let the net into the water, watching the minnows swim up to the bread.  When there were about 25 fish inside, we would pull up the net and watch the minows wiggle and jump around in the net.   We did this time after time until we had enough minnows for Dad and Pappap to fish with.

All of those years ago - I never thought once about what happened to the minnows, or the fact that they were going to be bait.  It was just part of the life cycle of a fishing community.  You fish, you eat.  There was no catch and release back then... we needed all of the food we could get to  feed the large family that gathered at my granmother's table. Homemade veggies, pull-cakes, and the freshest fish you could ever hope for.  Life was good.