Un sábado por la mañana Grampo Caralampio looked at his grandson and said, "Ándale, Canutito, let's go fishing today. Pretty soon se va a comenzar la escuela and then you won't have time de ir a truchar with your old grampo."

Canutito finished off his almuerzo really fast and followed his grandfather hacia el backyard. He had a shovel en sus manos.

"Uh grampo," he started, "why do you have esa pala en la mano?"

"With esta pala," he replied, "we are going to dig up unas lombrices. And these lombrices," he continued anticipating Canutito's next question, "are the earthworms that we will use as bait allá en la trucha."

"Do you use lombrices siempre as bait?" asked the boy de su abuelo.

"No siempre," Grampo Caralampio replied. "A veces I use chapulines or huevos de salmón. Pero una vez when I forgot to take along the grasshoppers and the salmon eggs, I just caught una trucha con la mano, poked out its dead eyes and used them como bait."

Canutito thought por un momento as he watched grampo digging for worms. "Uh grampo," he said slowly, "how did you catch a trout with your hand?"

"Oh," grampo began, "that used to be a real art. What I used to do era de acostarme de panza and once I had flopped down on my belly on the river bank, I would put mis manos en el agua and feel around muuuy despacito under the rock. Con las manos en el agua, feeling under las piedras I would soon trap one, close my fingers slowly around it, and throw it out of the water."

"Pero grampo," asked Canutito, "how did you know where to look for las truchas?"

"Oh," began Grampo Caralampio thoughtfully, "they usually like to hide debajo de las piedras that are under los remances."

"Uh grampo," said Canutito unsuredly, "what is a 'remance'?"

"Un remance," replied grampo, "is the place where water splashes down into a river or creek. Es como un miniature waterfall. Eee, sometimes I would catch so many truchas that I would have to make una horqueta to carry them all home.

And before you ask, an 'horqueta' is a forked stick made out of fresh willow. You open the mouth of the trucha and stick one end of the horqueta through one of its gills and out the open mouth. You kind of make a ristra of fish when you do it asina."

Canutito was fascinated by las historias de su grampo. He continued watching a su grampo dig por lombrices.

"Anda, m'hijo!" his grampo teased good-naturedly. "Come and ayúdame. The truchas aren't going to jump into the puela by themselves."

Canutito kneeled down and began to break up the adobes that his grampo had dug out del side de la acequia. He had never actually pulled lombrices out from the mud. Suddenly he exclaimed, "¡Ay! I think que I was bitten por una wild lombriz!" He held up his finger for grampo to look at.

"No era una wild lombriz, m'hijo," grampo replied. You set your hand down en un cadillo; un cockle burr. You got some of the stickers en el dedo. Ándale, keep on trabajando."

As Grampo Caralampio and Canutito continued looking for worms en silencio, grampo started to tell him another story. "Una vez when I was about your age, I went fishing con mi hermano. The water was so warm que I just me quité toda la ropa and I jumped into the shallow warm water de la acequia buck-naked. Then my brother got una buena idea. He went upsteam and chased all of the truchas down to where I sat en el agua con mis legs todas spread out. Las truchas came down fast trying to hide somewhere and they hid under mis piernas. I tell you, m'hijo, all I had to do it reach down and catch them aquí entre las verijas close to el mero seven."

"Yuck! Grampo!" exclaimed Canutito. "You caught las truchas in your crotch?"

"Sí, m'hijo, y sabes que they were probably the tastiest truchas that I ever ate."

Canutito got vasca and queazy at the mere thought ...

¿Le gustaría compartir sus propias anécdotas o comentar con Torres sobre esta columna? Envíele un correo electrónico a lartor@unm.edu.