Fishing at the George Stock Tank
When I was a boy living on the Callahan County side of the Scranton community, my grandfather, John Shrader, used to take me and some of his other grandchildren with him to fish in one of the local stock tanks. Granddad was the elementary school principal at Baird, the county seat, and usually had plenty of time in the summer for one of his favorite leisure activities. As a longtime fixture in this sparsely-settled area, he knew most people who lived there, and he made it a point to make friends with the ranchers with watering holes for cattle, known as stock tanks. These ponds were usually stocked with fish – bass, crappie, bream (sunfish), perch and/or channel catfish. One summer afternoon during the drought of the 1950s, my grandfather took us to “Mr. George’s tank” to fish. Grandmother, who was often better at fishing than Granddad, went along with us, and there may have been a couple of my cousins, too. My grandfather explained to us Mr. George had been reluctant to gr...