YOUNG JAMES THROGHER AND THE BIG BREAM
This is an adaptation of a story told to me by Mr. James Chushen of Graceville, Florida one night in the parking lot of the Hardee’s hamburger joint.

One summer morning in 1937 I went with my daddy to work at the shake mill. Now that mill made cypress shingle shakes for roofing. The mill set on the bank of the Chipola River just down the road from Graceville Florida, back up in a hardwood and pine woods.

The loggers would cut cypress trees and drag them to the river, and then they’d float them down to the mill. When the logs got to the mill they’d get caught in the pond that was created by a dam. When the mill needed a log some fellers would go down there with a yoke of oxen and drag one up to the mill.

There was what you’d call a skid, which was a place along the bank where they’d pull them logs out. On each side of the skid there was willow trees. It was always slick from all the splashing from them oxen and the logs a drippin’ water. It seemed like that place never quite got dry, and nothing grew in the skid. Another fixture of that holding pond was two or three gators. Two of them gators was good size but one was mighty big and when the fellers would walk the logs they was real cautious.

Well, one of them days when I went with daddy to the mill he took me down to the skid, cut a limb off of one of them willow trees, took a piece of cotton line, a #3 hook and a old cork from a whiskey bottle and fashioned them together into a fishin’ poll. He had found a little piece of babbet up at the mill and told me to make a sinker out of it. I beat it down flat and wrapped it around the line while he tied everything together.

After we was done he showed me a place where I could find some good worms and handed me an old tin can and had me dig some up for bait. When I had a dozen or so worms I went up to the mill and found him working, totin’ slabs. For those of you who don’t have any idea about country life a slab is the first piece they cut off the outside of the log. It has the bark on it and ain’t much good for nothin’.

Daddy walked me down to the skid and pointed to a spot where he said “If you will fish over there you’ll catch some good bream. Make sure you watch out for them gators cause I can’t afford to lose you”. Well I throwed a worm out there and sure enough, it weren’t 30 seconds I had a good bream on the bank. I put it on a forked stick and went for another which didn’t take long. Well after about an hour I had a good mess, and them alligators weren’t paying the first bit of attention to me. I was beginning to feel pretty good about myself and thought I might wind up catchin’ enough for all the hands up to the mill.

When I’d throw my line out and the bait would settle in the water that cork would lay over on its side until a fish would take hold of it, then it would stand up on its end. After the cork stood up it would start to move real slow like out from the bank and then shoot straight down. That’s when I’d rear back on it and set the hook.

Well, I hooked up a big worm and slung it out as far as I could and just let it sit there. After a few seconds that cork stood up just like I said, and started to move, then it stopped for a couple of seconds. I wasn’t thinking much, just waitin’ for some action when it caught me looking. All of a sudden that thing headed for the bottom. This’en weren’t like them other fish I’d been pullin’ out, it was a big’un.

Now you got to understand, I weren’t but about eight years old and I didn’t weigh no more than a good drink of water. I was all squatted down on that slick mud bank and I started to slip. At first I was just loosing my footing but it soon turned into a quick slide. As I was headin’ down the bank I reached out to the side and grabbed a little bush about the size of my thumb and hung on for dear life. By the time I grabbed that bush I was already up to my pants legs in the water. There I was, all stretched out hanging on to that bush with one hand and the end of my poll in the other hand with that fish tryin’ his best to take it away. When I come to my senses I started hollerin’ “Daddy, daddy, come a running”! Some how he heard me holleren’ over the scream of that big saw and he hot footed it to me. He ran right into the water, grabbed me up and walked up the bank. He never even saw that I had a fish on. When he grabbed me I turned loose of that bush and caught the poll with both hands. As daddy walked me up the bank I hossed up on that poll and pulled out a bream bigger than any of them fellers at the mill had ever seen.

About the time the commotion died down the steam whistle at the mill blew for dinner time. Them fellers started rollin’ out of that mill headin’ for the skid to see what was a goin’ on. Mr. Young, the owner of the mill was one of the first to come down there and he was just a laughin’ at the expression on my face. When he saw my catch he stopped in his tracks and said “Why son, you’ve done gone and caught the biggest bream in the state. He asked my daddy if he could take it up to the mill office and put it on the scale. We all followed him up there and he brought the scale outside so everyone could see the weight for themselves. He eased it on the scale table and let the fish settle down. When the hand stopped moving it said five pounds and two ounces.

The newspaper did a little write up about me and that big bream, and for the next few weeks I was famous all over Graceville. Well, nobody remembers that no more, I but I always will.