<Begin Segment 22>

RP: But, so you got out of camp for a little while, too.

HN: Yeah. Got out of camp. But we used to sneak out anyway, out the other side and go up the mountains.

RP: Did you fish?

HN: Yes. We used to use bread dough for bait. It was good fishing bait.

RP: What did you use for...

HN: Hook?

RP: A hook and a rod?

HN: Well, we'd just take safety pins and bend 'em into thing and piece of stick with a string on it. You innovate when you don't have anything.

RP: And where would, would you just sneak out where everyone else did around Bairs Creek?

HN: Yeah. I lived right next to Bairs Creek.

RP: You were in five, yeah.

HN: Five. We just went right up to the river, looked through the guard towers and snuck under the fence and went up the bank.

RP: So when would you go out? Would you go out very early in the morning?

HN: Early in the morning, about three o'clock in the morning we'd go out.

RP: And then you head up Bairs Creek and...

HN: Yeah, head up Bairs Creek and then we'd get there about five, start fishing. But we usually didn't come home until it got dark though. We would stay up there 'til it got dark. Then we came home.

RP: You stayed out there all day then?

HN: Yeah.

RP: Huh. Did you have your special fishing holes or did you just fish the whole creek?

HN: Oh, we just fished the creek, we went up and come down. Then after a while they weren't watching very closely anyway. We're not the only ones that went out. A lot of people went out.

RP: Is that where you actually caught your first fish? Had you fished before?

HN: Yes. No, I hadn't fished before. First time I caught a trout, yeah. But... there's a guy writing a whole story on that right? Yeah.

RP: Yes.

KP: Did you ever find your way up into the mountains or just follow the creek?

HN: No, we didn't. We were too young to go up any heights. We just went up to the foothills and back down.

RP: How many times would you say that you went out fishing?

HN: I can't remember. At least ten anyway.

RP: And who did you go with?

HN: Just another friend. Just two of us. You can't take too many otherwise you get caught. [Laughs] You know, you can't get five guys to go. That's a crowd.

RP: That's a good feeling to be on the other side of the fence for a little while.

HN: Well, I was going out with the garbage truck, though, at sixteen so, you know... I didn't start fishing 'til I was about fifteen.

RP: Do you remember anybody... there was one gentleman who used to go out... I don't know if he, he might have been on the garbage crew, too, but he said they'd dump the garbage and then they would stop at the Owens River and they'd try to scoop out carp, you know, using garbage cans.

HN: Carp?

RP: Yeah, they'd scoop through the river and try to get the carp into the garbage cans and bring 'em back and dump 'em into the gardens.

HN: Oh, yeah?

RP: Yeah.

HN: I didn't know about that one.

RP: Fishing by garbage can.

HN: Yeah. That's interesting. Good story.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.