Bob Selle hooks interest with historic fish tale

(It was on Sept. 30, 2000, that Erik Daarstad and I met with Bob Selle in his home to interview him for the “Sandpoint Centennial” movie. As he walked again the paths of yesteryear, Bob felt again the excitement of his life experiences and his words reflected his enthusiasm. In his way of speaking, them became “’em,” because became “cause,” and anything to be emphasized was done with a “yeah” or, if very important, “yeah, yeah.” Today, Bob shares, in his own words, how he made his living when the snow came and work in the woods was terminated. Bob Selle died at his Sunnyside home on Sept. 1 2004, at the age of 88.)

Question: Bob, did you ever do any commercial fishing?

Selle: Oh Yes, we used to fish the white fish before they had commercial fishing. When I went to school that is how we got our spending money. We’d go catch a dozen white fish, which weighed about a pound a piece. And we would bootleg ’em. We’d go door to door and of course you didn’t have any trouble selling ’em because we’d sell ’em for one dollar a dozen and they weighed about a pound a piece, cleaned, so they got 12 pounds of meat for a dollar. You’d sell ’em the very first door you knocked on.

When we were older, and at work, you’d get laid off in the wintertime, no matter what you did, you know. They didn’t have anything to plow snow with so all the logging would shut down. They had commercial fishing and you could buy a license for $10 and then you could take so many fish, you could take 50 fish a day, and sell ’em. We got 10 cents a pound for ’em. So, if you caught your limit of fish you could get $5.

I did that even after I was married. I got laid off in the winter and I used to walk across the train bridge and go over to Bottle Bay. I had a cabin rented over there and I’d stay there a week and then the fish buyer would come there and buy the fish — you had to sell ’em to a licensed dealer. I’d stay in this cabin and fish seven days, or six days, and then I’d go home. I’d walk home on Saturday night and give my wife what I’d earned so she could feed the kids. Then I would walk back to the cabin.

Question: How do you fish for whitefish?

Selle: With a hand line — a sinker on the end with one hook baited with maggots, a small hook, number ten, you’d wrap ’em with the iron and a shank. Yeah.

Question: Do you think anybody ever exceeded the limit?

Selle: Oh, yes. We did not pay any attention to that cause the dealers were buying, you see. Cause they wanted the fish. You caught what you could catch. Yeah. I know I did. Fish and Game never bothered us.

Question: Who were the fish dealers?

Selle: The big dealer was Evans and he had the smoke house that’s on the other end of the Long Bridge, still there. But he also had a place set up in Sandpoint. The dealers would sell ’em fresh and they would smoke ’em and ship ’em. They shipped ’em all over the world, believe it or not, there was that much of a market for ’em. They were that good. Boy, they were really good smoked white fish. Yeah.

Question: Bob, you said this was during the worst part of the depression. How did you get your boats?

Selle: Oh, we build our own boats. The Humbird Lumber Company used to take and throw lumber over the bank into the creek. They had a burn place and in the spring when it was wet, they’d burn this lumber. It was good lumber. You could go over there and pick it out. So, we’d go over and get these 12-inch cedar boards and we built little dories out of ’em. We had to have five good boards and you could find ’em. If they didn’t make first grade, they’d just throw ’em over into this burn pile. There used to be a trestle right where the information travel (chamber of commerce) place is now. We called it the tin trestle because it was a wooden trestle and it had tin on the ties so when the engines would go across, the coal burners wouldn’t set ’em on fire, you know. The dump pile was right there, we’d walk across, and we’d carry back these boards on our shoulders. Then we’d bend ’em, make the sides, put the ribs in ’em, and put caulking — we made our own boats. They were dories, you see. You wanted ’em flat bottomed so they wouldn’t drift in the wind cause you didn’t anchor to fish white fish — they wouldn’t come to you — you had to go drift to them. You held your boat straight so your line was straight up and down. You had to do that. It was kind of hard when there was a windy day.

We’d whittle our own oars out. I remember going and picking posts out at the pole yard. If you could get a nice straight grain cedar, you’d just take a knife and start whittling the shape to whatever size you wanted. You’d make the blade like you wanted it, the shaft, and the handle. Yep, we made our own oars.

We also made our own stoves. We’d go to the dump and find a piece of an old car body and take a chisel and chisel out a piece of iron. We made a little stove for the boat, you know. We would sit straddle of it between our legs, we’d pull ashore, and we’d go on the beach and eat our lunch. We’d find a drift log, we liked cedar or pitch wood, but pitch wood was what we wanted cause when you put a piece of that in, the stove really got hot — and you got black from the soot.