It hadn't really occurred to Dusty that the city boy wouldn't have some basic knowledge of fishing. He'd brought a few different poles, having expected Caelan might just pick one up, but when he asked to learn, he realized it would be another lesson for opportunity same as the firearms lesson had been. The more poles in the water, the better off they would be. He set his rod aside and picked up one of the other poles, showing Caelan how to hook the shrimp without getting pricked. Next, he showed him the basics of the rod, and how to cast, and how to change the drag.<br/><br/>"Catfish will pick up just about anyting, laying on da bottom. No sense in dragging the riverbed. You jus gonna get hungup on rotten tree trunks an old rot. Now, predatory fish want to chase, so you gotta mimick prey. Pull it on threw da wata in a way dat looks natural, but gotta pay attention too. See da way that wata ripples over dere, den goes still. Sometin unda blockin off da current. Probably big ol cypress tupelo, fallen over. Good spot to cast, so long as you don't hook da hidden tree trunk." Dusty shrugged. "Play wit what works. I'll show you how to tie off a new hook da first time we have to cut your line, but the ones after you'll do yourself." After a while Caelan would get tired of cutting lines and get better at not casting into trees, or get better at getting a line unstuck, anyway.<br/><br/>Fishing wasn't meant to be something super involved. Dusty changed things up when he got bored, running some live bait a few times through the water before setting it to forget it for the bottom feeders. A lot of his bait ended up stolen when he was drinking instead of fishing, but that was all part of it. The company made him less productive, but it sure beat going it alone. He didn't realize how starved for attention he was until he'd relied on the interactions with Caelan every few weeks. He enjoyed watching him learn some more practical skills. It was all things Dusty had taken for granted and had started to learn at a young age. Finding his own food source was something his family had done long before it became fashionable, and even longer before the collapse of society.<br/><br/>"What you do with your time in da city? Only reason I ever went into the city was for<i>Lafitte's</i>." An old bar that remained unchanged while Dusty had been growing up. "Bet it's been picked clean. Poor ol man<i>Lafitte</i>. Hope he died before seeing it ransacked."