Back when I was a kid in '59 we lived in Rosthern, half-way between Saskatoon and Prince Albert, and being just a kid, didn't have much money for fishing equipment. So to go fishing just south of the Rosthern-Wakaw ferry (now bridge) on the S. Saskatchewan R., we'd bike from town with only a small bag of gear.
The gear was a coil of green braided cotton line that is usually sold today as duck decoy anchor line, a couple of snelled hooks, and a jar of worms. When we got to the river, we'd tie a suitable rock onto the end of the line, make a couple of loops a foot or so higher, and put on the hooks.
Then we'd cut a willow stick about 5' long, jam it into the mud, unwind the line and tie it to the top of the willow. We'd whirl the rock and baited hooks around until we got good speed going, and wing them out into the river. Then we'd build a fire, (because there was no adult around to yell at us) and wait for the stick to start moving. Usually we did pretty good for goldeye, fishing like that, but we caught just about everything else in the river too. Except we never got a sturgeon, although my brother insists he had one on, having seen something big roll before breaking off. Anyway, those are some of my favorite memories of the old way of fishing.
