Not much of a fish tale
When my father took us fishing, he would drive down to Linley's, the gas station store at the turnoff from the highway to the shale road where my grandmother's and grandfather's houses were, to buy a bucket full of minnows. Once we got older and braver, we would ride our bikes up and down the hills of that shale road to buy grape pops and Big League Chew bubble gum (all except for Brad Cooper, who at 8 years old was already chewing real tobacco). But when Dad wasn't with us and we wanted to fish, we'd raid my grandfather's old refrigerator for American cheese and baloney. If my brother, Matt, could be convinced to ask, Grandpa would give us bacon, but because he was the only boy among us, Matt had an early sense of entitlement and often couldn't be cajoled in doing anything for us girls.
When we were very young, we had cane poles with line, bobbers, and hooks, and not much else. Later, we would all have cheap reels and a tackle box, but that wasn't until at least one of us, probably Matt, was judged responsible enough for a fishing knife.
Fortified with our slimy bait and cane poles, we would tramp through the pasture to the ponds Grandpa had the county dig when they mined the shale. Most of the ponds were seeded with perch or catfish, and we could fish from those all we wanted. Further back were two bass ponds that we could only fish in with Grandpa's permission. Of course, generally only Matt, being the only grandson at the time, was invited to fish the bass ponds. Stacey, the de facto grandson when Matt and I were back home in the suburbs, often fished back there. But not when the true grandson was around.
Instead, we'd fish the perch ponds with our baloney and American cheese and give Matt hell for being Grandpa's favorite. Of course, later, Matt would go into town with Grandpa to get an ice cream cone and watch him play cards while we burned our bare feet on the hot shale road walking over to Grandma Marie's for ice tea and store brand sandwich cookies.