Catfish Shovel Flood
It takes the right tackle to catch a fish.
It was summer time some years ago and we had planted a wonderful garden that spring. We had picked a good spot for it, our farm land backed up to a small river on the south side and we laid in our corn, beans, squash, tomatoes and such in that rich bottom land The good lord gave us plenty of rain by mid season and everything was doing great. Each morning we would gather the dogs and hoes and walk the quarter mile or so down toward the river. In those days we only had local weather reports on the radio.We had no idea how much it had rained the week before up river, several counties away. We got to the garden one July morning and the river was flooding, slowly approaching all our hard work. We quickly ran back to the tool barn and grabbed every shovel we could find. We began digging drainage ditches to divert the rising water. That garden was important to us, we canned a lot of those vegetables, it was our source of food for the coming winter. Digging as fast as I could I noticed a small wake between the corn and beans. I quickly waded over and saw a fin moving slowly through the rows It took several tries but I finally got him. I scooped that Bull Head Catfish and tossed him onto dry ground.
We saved the garden that day. That night we had Catfish and Tomatoes for supper
Jimmy Louis
Jimmy Louis is one of our best friends and is a contributor to our fishing report segment. Mr. Louis is an accomplished song writer and singing artist. Many of his songs have been recorded and are well known. For information about his works, or how to purchase his works contact us here at fwb.viewer@knology.net Watch for his CD’s in our store in the near future. Mr. Louis has performed with such greats as Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, David Allen Coe, Mickey Newbury, and many more.
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The King and The Kid
Dad dropped me off and was to return in four hours to pick me up. It was a bit foggy that day in November. The cool of fall was setting in, 58 to 60 degrees maybe. I was 12 years old and fishing from the Panama City Beach Pier located where Pineapple Willies is now. It was a neat old wooden pier with patched boards every where. There used to be a tackle shop at the end but a storm knocked it in the water a time before. Anyway it made a good reef for fishing. I didn't have much faith in the fishing that day. Seemed too cold. But I caught a cigar minnow with a snatch hook rig and used it as bait on my big pole. A trolling reel with 50 lb. Dacron line. I may have had 75 yards.The water was glassy and at this point it was a waiting game. I had a big red and white plastic cork on. I was being hypnotized by my cork when I saw a swirl that resembled prop wash from a big boat and then my cork sank right down through the middle of it. I had a big fish on. It made a run and took almost all of my line so I tightened up on it and turned it my way. When it came by the front of the pier it was swimming on the bottom and I couldn't tell what it was. It looked five feet long. Two or three times I got it close and it took all my line. I finally got it up and it was a King Mackerel, twenty-five pounds or more. They had a net they could drop down on a rope and were in position. I was trying to guide the fish into the net. Got it in once,but it managed to get out. I almost had it in the net when the steel leader broke. This story's about one that got away. Things like that didn't happen to me very often, so when the excitement wore down a bit, I had another minnow on and was watching the cork. Dad showed up and I made him walk out to the end to get me. We stayed a few minutes but no more 25 lb. King Mackerel bites that day.
Tom Collins
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A twelve mile ride home in that stinky, dusty old school bus with twenty sweaty kids was not all bad. About half the ride to and from school was on dirt roads thru the woods, which was the part I liked the most. Every window was down to let in some fresh air, but we let in as much dust as we did air, and it settled on everything. I loved those sandy Florida back roads but I hated that bus. I was the only red headed kid in school so I got picked on a lot, and it didn’t help that the bus driver hated my dad so he’d just let the big boys work me over.
I had three brothers; I was the second oldest so I had a little back up most of the time. My older brother Pierson would step in to help keep the older boys off, but he had his own problems to deal with. They didn’t like him much either. My younger brother “Bad Bill” would wade in on anyone who crossed any of us. Bill wasn’t really so bad, and he wasn’t that big, but he was very sneaky. He could take a punch from the best of them, and then sometimes he would pretend to be hurt. He would roll around on the floor gasping and crying real tears, or acting like he was choking to death. His opponent would always think he had hurt Bill and would be in trouble; therefore, he always went to help. When he got close enough, Bill would grab him and the only one who needed help was the poor soul on the other end of Bill’s revenge. I’ve seen times when I wanted to pull Bill off of those guys, but I never did. I always thought it was funny to see a little guy whoop some big old bully. We didn’t have trouble every day, but we each had our moments, and some of them were memorable. As for our youngest brother R.C., the only thing he had to worry about was that last step off the bus.
Now my favorite stretch of the road home was that between Morgan’s Creek and Turkey Creek. There were five little streams in the land that lay between those two creeks and some of the best fishing in the county. Any Saturday morning if we weren’t cutting cane or running the cane mill, you could see me and my two best “buds” each with a cloth bag of fishing tackle. We didn’t bother with poles. We’d just cut a sapling, cut the limbs off with our “Old Timer” pocket knives, rig them up and go to fishing. Most times we caught so many bream and catfish that we just couldn’t carry some old pole thru the woods too.
My two best friends Buck and Charley were cousins and mostly Creek Indian. Their granddaddy Mr. Willy and grandma on both their daddy’s side were full blood Creek Indians. Charley’s mom came over from Scotland when she was a baby. I don’t know but I heard her folks were trying to get away from some bad folks from up north. My folks came from Scotland 155 years earlier and I liked to think that Charley and I might be kinfolk.
Mr. Willy called Buck and Charley, Buck N Snort, and me Berry because of my red hair. I didn’t like anybody else calling me that but I liked it when he said it. Mr. Willy had a warm voice and knew the Indian ways.
Old Mr. Willy would tell us stories and every one had a lesson. Fishing, hunting, and living off the land came natural to him and he tried to teach us all about it. A good sharp pocket knife, some saplings, some palmetto fronds, and we could have a chickee hut in an afternoon. We could also make a fish trap in the creek in no time flat, and dress and cook our catch as pretty as you please. When we were real little, like seven or eight years old, Mr. Willy would take us camping for two or three days at a time. After we got up to about ten years old, our folks would let us go by ourselves. You can’t do that these days; there is just too much meanness out in the world. Our folks knew that we were cautious of danger and that we were all strong swimmers. What I didn’t know until I grew up a little was that our fathers would sneak to our camp sight and check on us. We had three different camp sites we built chickees in, and they would slip thru those woods without a light and never make a sound, all in the dead of night.
There were plenty of dangers for them to worry about too, like panthers, bobcats, rattlesnakes, moccasins, and bears; but worst of all were the gators and wild dogs. We would see moccasins three of four times a day, and gators just as often. Rattle snakes were not so bad because they would let you know they were there, but a moccasin will chase you so you had better keep an eye out. Most alligators back then were afraid of man and would try to get away. We almost never saw a bear, only their tracks. Mr. Willy said that if you kept the fire going a bear probably wouldn’t come into camp. I only heard of two men being hurt or killed by gators, and they were messing with wounded ones.
What I worried about most of all were those wild dogs. One, of our neighbor’s oldest boy got treed by a pack of wild dogs and stayed in that tree until his Pa and brother came looking for him. Everybody said it was a good thing that man always carried a revolver. He got three of them but two got away.
Well, now that you know a little about how things were in that part of Florida back then, I’ll get back to my story.
After my weekly beating on the bus ride home, I had to move the cow to the shed so Bill could feed her. Mom wouldn’t trust us to milk the cow after she caught Charley drinking the milk before we got it to the house. After dealing with the cow, I had to help Pierson cut firewood. I always felt bad about how he seemed to always be cutting firewood. Pier knew what Buck, Charley and I had planned, so he told me he didn’t need any help and to get my supplies for the weekend packed in my cloth bag.
My Friday afternoon beating came on a Thursday this time because we got out of school at noon that Thursday. Getting that day off meant that we could stay in the woods two nights rather than one. I packed my cloth bag and loaded my homemade wagon and started off. I had to walk a mile to the community store where I would meet Charley, and we would walk together to Buck’s. Charley had his wagon loaded with all the regular stuff, but this time he had 40 feet of 3/8”plow line rolled up. I didn’t know where he got it and I didn’t ask. Forty feet of 3/8” plow line was worth a lot of money back then and nobody had much money. It turned out that Mr. Willy had given it to him for his birthday. That wasn’t the only thing different in Charley’s wagon. There was a God-awful smell coming from it. I had bacon, two gallons of cane juice, and a full dozen eggs. We had too many chickens so we had more than enough eggs, so I got a dozen. I had my eggs packed in straw in a pasteboard box, and the cane juice was in clay jugs. My “Bigdaddy” (grandfather) let me use his jugs with ring handles and I thought I was special. We would tie a cord to the ring handles and put the jugs of juice in the creek to keep them cool. That juice was what we had instead of Coke.
We had to walk another two miles to Buck’s. Every time the wind would change, I could smell what ever that was in Charley’s wagon. If he got the slightest bit ahead, it would take my breath. I don’t know why Charley was so closed mouth about what that stink was. I asked him several times just to hear him say, “You’ll find out soon enough.” After two or three gaggin’s I told Charley whether he told me or not, he was gonna have to stay behind me.
Mr. Willy lived next door to Buck so we stopped there to get Buck. Charley left his wagon out by the road well away from the house. Mr. Willy said “Snort, bring me that plow line.” When Charley got it to him, Mr. Willy produced the biggest fish hook I had ever seen and tied it on the line. He asked Charley if he had that old stinky meat (road kill) and said with all that we might catch that big catfish this time. Mr. Willy asked which campsite we were going to use because he was going to come down and set hooks with us.
This was turning out to be big! We were all hoping he would spend the night too. There were four beds in the chickee and more than enough room.
A chichee is a thatched roof on four poles. The bunks are raised about three feet off the ground and made of saplings, and palmetto fronds. You would need to put a thick quilt all doubled up on top or else you would be sore for days. A fire for cooking was in the middle of the dirt floor. The fire did more than just cook our food. It kept the “no-seeums” and mosquitoes out. We would use a little green wood to make the fire smoke more to help keep the bugs away. Hickory was our favorite. We had a big table outside that we made out of saplings and old boards we had found. On the table was a big wooden box my dad and Buck’s dad brought down with a mule and wagon. The box was where we stored pots and pans and the like. I know this sounds pretty elaborate for three boys but we weren’t the only ones who used this place. All our families used this chickee. Some times the men in the community would use it like a base camp for overnight fishing and coon hunting trips. Some of my best memories are of the parties the whole community would hold there in the fall and spring.
After gathering up Buck and all his supplies, we were off through the woods. The trail to our camp site, which started in front of Mr. Willy’s house, was just wide enough to get a mule and wagon down. The walking wasn’t too bad. The trail went back and forth from sand to mud, with little springs every now and then that we would walk thru. I don’t know why, but Charley insisted on walking in front, even though Buck and I complained the whole time. I had smelled that stench until I almost got used to it. After about an hour of walking, we finally made the reach and unloaded our supplies. The days were still long in mid September. Therefore, we had enough time to set most of our hooks before it got too dark.
Not to waste any time, we went all the way to where Morgan’s Creek ran into Blackwater River. The Blackwater was spring fed and was clear as a bell; but for some reason the water looked black as a widow woman’s dress in a coal mine. You could see bass, bream, stump knockers, and warmouth just about everywhere. The catfish were all laid up in holes or sniffing around on the bottom. We were about four miles from Oconee Bay where we could catch trout and redfish just like any other fish.
When we got to the Blackwater, the first thing we did was set that big hook on the plow line. Charley said, “Okay, boys, I dragged that stinking mess down here in my wagon so one of you is gonna bait the hook with it.” Well, I thought I’d show those Indian boys what a man I was and do the baiting. I reached in that bag, and pulled it out with a quick jerk. The bait was the back half of a big old coon. I was doing fine until the fumes off that thing drifted up and struck my nose. Well, as it turned out, I wasn’t all that much of a man. I won’t go into how sick I got but they still laugh about that 50 years later.
We set twenty more hooks up Morgan Creek and got back to the chickee just at dark. Buck got the fire going while Charley and I got the bed rolls out and supper going. I sliced up some bacon, scrambled three eggs, and stuck some leftover biscuits on sticks and placed them close to the fire to warm up. Buck got a bucket of good cold spring water for drinking from just behind the chickee. I don’t know why but food always tastes better when you’re out in the woods. Campfire food is the best; maybe it’s the grit or the smoke.
We each got a bucket of water and washed the best we could before we crawled in bed for the night. Buck had gathered plenty of firewood and any one who woke in the night was to throw some on the fire. We all knew it was important to keep that fire going, if for nothing else, to keep the bugs off. We all kept our pocket knives handy just in case some wild dogs came by. As all kids do, we lay there talking and laughing till late, and drifted off to sleep one by one.
Charley woke me up stoking the fire when he stumbled backwards with a piece of firewood and stuck his elbow in my ear. I just rolled over and went back to sleep. I don’t know what time it was after that when a loud crack woke me up again. When I looked around, both Buck and Charley were up on their elbows reaching for their knives. I already had my knife out and open. The fire was in good shape so we just sat there listening to something out by the river making all sorts of racket.
“What is that?” I asked. “Panthers don’t break limbs like that unless they fall out of a tree and that ain’t likely.” Charley said, “It’s a bear, and a big one too.” Buck just got up on his feet in bed and listened. We all got our shoes on just in case we had to hightail it out of those woods. We all knew that a man can’t out run a bear but we weren’t going to sit still and let it eat us. You know the old saying. ”You don’t have to out run the bear. All you have to do is out run the other fellow.” We each got a piece of fat lighter and lit it in the fire for a torch.
We heard a few more cracks and some rustling around in the brush, and then it just stopped. We held our torches for a while but after about half an hour, we all stuck them in the ground just outside and around the chickee. We hoped the extra light would help keep any bear away. Nobody said it, but we were all scared, bad scared. Not one of us went back to sleep the rest of the night.
In the morning when the sky starts to turn that silver blue just before the sun comes up, we got a little braver. We each got a weapon of sorts. Buck and I each had an axe, and Charley had a buck knife as long as his arm. We started a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and biscuits, just like supper. We didn’t bother with the cane juice. It was in the spring and that was too close to the woods. After we finished breakfast, the sun was bright enough to see fine and we started cautiously down the trail to the last hook we had set.
The first two hooks we checked were empty, but the next one had a keeper size catfish. The next three hooks still had their bait, but the fourth and fifth had catfish about the same size as the first. The rest of the hooks were hit or miss until we got down to three before the big hook. Charley grabbed that line and it almost pulled him in. Before it was finished we all pulled in the biggest redfish any of us had ever seen. We had only seen one almost that big before; the man who caught it, skinned it, like a coon and nailed it’s hide on his barn, for everyone to see. We planned to do the same thing. Bragging rights are very important among fishermen in our neck of the woods. The next two hooks were bare, not even bait, and those hooks had been straightened out.
While Charley and I tied on some new hooks, Buck walked on down to the big hook. After just a minute we heard him yell back up to us, “Do ya’ll remember where we put that hook?” I was just getting to Charley when Buck yelled, and Charley just looked up, and said, ”He goes stupid when he has missed some sleep.” We were laughing, and I said, “Maybe he just needs glasses.” Charley said, ”Nope, he’s just stupid.” We laughed and made fun of him as we walked toward Buck and the hook. With the catch of catfish and that big redfish we had forgotten all about whatever it was that kept us up all night.
The next sound we heard was Buck’s voice echoing through the woods. “Ya’ll get your fannies down here and be quick about it too.” Thoughts of the night before started to ring back into our heads as we ran down the trail, ricocheting from tree to tree, and cutting every corner we could. Before we could get there, he was giving us trouble for taking so long. When we got to him out of breath, he was just standing there looking at the ground. “Lookee here,” he said, “that hole is where that tree we tied the line to used to stand.” “Mercy,” said Charley, “where’d it go?” Buck just pointed towards the water. The sapling, to which we had tied the hook, had been pulled up by the roots and dragged five feet where it had become fouled between two bigger trees and stuck. At the same time we all looked at each other and said “gator.” Buck said “Lord help us. What are we gonna to do now?” Buck was always calling on the Lord for some kind of divine intervention, but this time we all agreed. Charley said, “Buck if that’s an alligator, the Lord is on his own and I’ll just go back to the house.” Buck was determined to see what was on that line. We could run if we wanted, but he was gonna take a look see.
We were all standing by the water’s edge just looking into that black reflection of trees and sky when Buck took the rope. He lifted it up to his knees and it just hung limp. He stood on up and nothing. Then he pulled in three or four feet of line until it got tight. When he got all the slack out, we all just stood still and waited to see what would happen next.
Well, apparently Charley is the one who goes stupid when he misses some sleep. With Buck standing there with both hands held tight around the line, Charley just as pretty as you please, reaches over and gives it a yank. The last thing we heard Buck say before he went under the water was “Lord-a-mighty.” In the blink of an eye, he was gone, and just as fast, he was right back up on dry land and on top of Charley, dripping wet and beating the snot out of him. I pulled them apart and told Buck he ought to be thanking the Lord that he got out alive. He looked me right in the eyes and said “Charley better be praying that I let him live.” Then he looked at Charley and said “What in blazes would make you do a stupid thing like that?” Charley was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak. Then we all sat down and had a good laugh.
The line and the sapling were still wedged between those two trees so we made a plan. There was some slack in the line again so we made a loop in the hook line. Charley got another rope from camp and we tied it through the loop. We ran the second rope around a tree. When Buck and I would pull a little slack from the line, Charley would take it up around the tree and hold tight.
We tied the end of Charley’s rope around another tree good and tight and removed the sapling. Whatever it was, it was heavy and we were dragging it on the bottom. After about eight to ten feet, it stopped moving. All of a sudden, a swell of water about twenty feet out in the river boiled up and wet all of us! The boil started as a hump in the water about six or eight feet across, then, turned into an explosion of spray. Charley squealed like a girl, but he hung on to the rope and even gained a little. We couldn’t budge it another inch and after about thirty minutes, we stopped to make a new plan. By then, we knew it wasn’t a gator, or we would have seen it by now, or else it would have cut itself loose.
The new plan was to go get Mr. Willy for help and advice. Charley still wasn’t convinced our catch was a catfish. He volunteered to run get Mr. Willy while Buck and I tied the line good and tight and sat back to wait for their return.
Charley ran for about 10 minutes when he met Mr. Willy walking down the trail to come fishing with us. As they hurried to help, Charley filled him in on the big redfish, the catfish and that monster still on the hook. Mr. Willy turned Charley around and sent him home to get help with a mule and wagon.
When Mr. Willy got there, the three of us started pulling and fighting. They were doing the pulling and I would take up the slack around that tree. After about thirty minutes we all took a break. I tied the line off to another tree and got us one of those jugs of cane juice. While we were resting, the river monster would jerk that line so hard it would pop like a 22 pistol. All we could do was hope to save it. Mr. Willy and Buck were soaked from being pulled in, two different times.
Charley was in a full run toward the store when my dad saw him kicking up a dust. Dad thought something must surely be wrong because Charley never moved any faster than he had to. When dad heard what was happening, he slung Charley up in the cab of his truck and went to get the other two fathers and a mule and wagon. It wasn’t long before we heard that wagon rattling down the trail and Charley hollering “Hang on boys, we’re a coming!”
Before they could stop by the chickee, Charley sailed out of the wagon, hit the ground, and rolled twice. Back up on his feet, he was kicking up leaves and dirt as high as his head. He made a beeline for us, still laughing and hollering, “Hang on boys, we’re a coming!” The three fathers came in a trot behind Charley, laughing at the show he was putting on. We all laughed, too, when we saw him. He was nasty as a pig, with dirt and leaves stuck to his sweaty face and beads of dirt and sweat around his neck. He was waving his hat in one hand and carrying one shoe in the other. Charley turned 61 last March and hasn’t lived that down yet.
With four grown men and a mule to pull that fish, the only thing we had to worry about was breaking the line. The three men told us to just sit back and rest out of the way; they would pull that old catfish right in. Mr. Willy gave me and Buck a nudge with his elbow and smiled. “Sure thing boys, we’ll be right over here in the shade while ya’ll rest us.” Buck and I sat down and leaned against a big red oak tree. Charley sat in Mr. Willy’s lap next to us and we all took a pull off that jug of cane juice. We knew what was in store for them if they weren’t ready, and they weren’t.
All three men grabbed hold of the line and began to pull. One of them started to comment on how he thought the line was fouled on something. Just then the water humped up again. “Lord in heaven what in the……” is all we heard before Buck’s dad lost his footing and hit the ground. The next sound was the wind rushing out of him when Charley’s dad fell on top of him and both slid into the water. The four of us poor weak souls resting under the tree were laughing and rolling around like a bunch of monkeys. My dad managed to go in feet first, but he was the last one out because the other two climbed him like a set of steps. When dad came up, he started hollering, “What are ya’ll sittin on your butts for? Can’t you see we need some help over here?” That made us laugh even harder. All three of those men have passed on now and not one was ever allowed to live that down.
When we all got on the line, it only took a few minutes, but we had worked most of the fight out of that catfish before the other men ever got there. It took everything we had to put that fish in the wagon. Not because it was so big, but because it was so big and slippery. It dressed out at 226 pounds on my daddy’s cotton scales. That was the biggest fish ever caught out of that river. We had to load him twice because it jumped out of the wagon once. Dad and Mr. Willy tied it down in the wagon. They were afraid one of us kids might take a fin and that could kill a child.
We got our camping gear and wagons loaded up and started out for the house when I remembered the stringer of fish back in the river. Dad turned the wagon around and we loaded those up too. None of the men had ever caught a redfish that big either. If you are wondering, that redfish weighed out at 38 pounds on the scale. That was another record for that river.
On the way home to weigh the haul, Dad stopped at the store to let us show off and brag a little. We must have been a sight, four grown men and three boys laughing and cutting up like we were all kids. Neighbors from all around came to see that big old catfish and listen to us spin a fishing yarn that they still talk about in these parts.
On Saturday we had a fish fry for the community. Over fifty people came, bringing covered dishes of all kinds. Mr. Lev, who owned the store, brought the cooking oil. We made twenty five gallons of sassafras tea. Buck’s dad brought the firewood for the cooking pots; he said it wouldn’t be right for Pierson to have to cut all that wood. Pierson was the first to agree.
The fish fry was held at our chickee on the Blackwater River where we caught that big old fish. Everyone either walked in or came in on a wagon. My dad and Mr. Lev used their wagons to bring folks in, especially the old folks, and those two kids with polio.
Some of the men from the church started in singing and everybody there joined in with them. While riding on the wagon with dad, I’ll never forget the sound of those voices rolling up through the woods. The folks in the wagon would start in before they ever saw the chickee. People were walking down the trail, singing, just like in an Elvis movie. The preacher graced the meal and in it he thanked the Lord for keeping each of us boys safe. My Momma cried just a little. She probably never thought she would hear my name in a prayer, unless it was over my grave.
I’m going to set some hooks on the river tomorrow. Anyone want to go?
I’d like to thank our great friend, Ms. B. Benefield for her time and proof reading skills. Without her I would have looked like an idiot.
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LARRY T. BROWN . . . . . Back to Contents