The weather, a farmer/s friend or foe, has been a mixture of beautiful springlike days, frosty mornings and windy, dry afternoons so far in April.

Our hope for rainfall this season seems to diminish with every passing day.

I remember when my brother Dana and I were growing alfalfa throughout the Santa Ynez Valley, many first or second cuttings would get soaked by a pretty good spring rainstorm in either April or May.

I can remember covering stacks of oat hay, just baled and stacked in the field, with black plastic to keep it dry before Don Whitford/s hay trucks got there to haul them to their final destination.

So we have a ways to go before we say it is the end of the rainy season along the Central Coast

When I was a young boy going to Ballard School in the early 1960s, we had a couple of years of good rainfall, which kept the creeks and streams running with water all around the Valley.

I recall my friend Cy Hawkins and his mother, Pat, invited a group of kids from school to go crawdad fishing in the Sanja Cota Creek on the Indian reservation in Santa Ynez.

Cy/s mother knew someone on the reservation who gave her permission to bring her small group of crawdad fisherman out for the day.

Cy/s dad built their home about a half-block south of Ballard School. Shortly after it was completed, he lost his battle with cancer, and Cy and his mother continued to live there for many years.

Cy liked to come down to our ranch and help with the various activities that were going on, and his mother, Pat, became good friends with Mom and Dad.

Soon the big day came to go crawdad fishing. I/m not sure we even knew what a crawdad was, but we were excited, and off we went.

We drove up to the edge of the slow-flowing Sanja Cota Creek inside the reservation. I remember the willows were thick as we made our way along a small pathway to the water/s edge.

The water was crystal clear and probably two feet deep as it ran by us, with some deeper pools here and there.

We had no fishing poles, and soon we were cutting willow branches three or four feet long and attaching a string about the same length to one end.

Mrs. Hawkins brought three or four loaves of bread along, and she began to show us how to break up the bread and tie it to the end of the string.

I think there were about four or five of us who went along for the day, and as soon as we all had some bread tied onto our strings, she found one of the deeper pools near the edge of the creek.

We could see the roots of the willows through the water, reaching down past the bottom of the pool. She explained to us that was where the crawdads were hiding.

She took one of our willow poles and let the bread get wet and sink. As the bread sank, out came a crawdad and grabbed the bread and string. She gently lifted the pole, and out came our first crawdad.

We all tried it one at a time and, sure enough, we had the same result. After doing it once, she helped us find several other pools close by, and we began to catch quite a few crawdads.

I can still remember watching the crawdads swim from the roots and rocks under clear water, grabbing that bread and holding on to it as I lifted the pole and put the crawdad into a bucket of water.

I/m sure we lost a few, but we ended the day with enough crawdads for dinner that night.

We brought our catch home, and Mrs. Hawkins showed us how to clean them. Cy and his Mom stayed and had dinner with us that night. I think Dad barbecued some chicken to go along with the catch of the day.

We had a great time that day. I think we went back a few times but never had the same luck we had the first day of crawdad fishing.

Cy and his mom, Pat, continued to live in Ballard until we went to high school. I believe they sold their property in Ballard and purchased a small farm south of Los Alamos on Highway 135, where Cy was heavily involved in FFA and raising chickens while attending Righetti High School.

Many years later, Mrs. Hawkins passed away. Cy had an opportunity to work for Cal Farm Insurance in Northern California and sold the farm near Los Alamos.

Maybe one of these days, I will give Cy a call and see if he knows where any good crawdad fishing spots are. I know Kathleen and Clayton would enjoy that.

Kevin Merrill is a vineyard manager for Mesa Vineyard Management in Santa Maria. He is president of the Central Coast Wine Growers/ Association Foundation and is a board member of the Santa Barbara County Farm Bureau. He can be reached at kmerrill@mesavineyard.com.

April 22, 2007