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After working in the walnut grove, the forest garden and the hog-food forest doin all that was time critical, I told the kids, "To heck with all this farmin!  I ain't been fishin all year.  Let's go!"

No arguments were given so we started the mad dash to find all the gear that hasn't been used since last year. 

But allow me to digress here a moment: I've mentioned earlier about my desire to raise my kids hard and fishin trips are one of the means to that end. Usually, when we go fishing, there are no ponds, no boats, no barbie fishing poles . . . a big negatory on all drug store paraphernalia. We use cane poles. We dip up our crawdads or take a tater fork to the creek and dig up red worms from a sand bar. We go in a swamp. We drive a mile then walk a mile to get to where we are going. We travel light. No snacks. No water (the creek has plenty of water in it).  No stringers (we make our own from green, forked sticks).   If the time on water requires a meal, its biscuits my daughters make and sausage that my son cooks. The trek there isn't so bad. The Odyssey back is long and all up a hill known locally as Tiger Hill 'cause it's a beast. I make it a point to go fishing a few times in August and September (aka August II).

Our gear consists of cane poles, bait buckets, knives, hooks, lead, line, skeeter dope and needle nosed pliers (when I was a kid we didn't even take pliers along opting instead to use our teeth to pinch the lead onto the line but alas I'm a wee bit softer than my own father.)

We fish hard.  Competition is fierce. Cooperation is mandatory. Snakes are frequent. Fun is constant.

The lump in my throat . . . barely manageable. 

I love looking up the creek and seeing my daughters sitting flat down in slick, clay mud deftly coaxing a crawdad on a hook; watching my sons walk foot-logs to get out closer to a spot they just couldn't quite reach from the bank; watching them all wade out into water muddy and murky from heavy spring rains to get a closer look at a mocassin sunning itself on a log; watching my youngest daughter snatch the puppy up from he jaws of certain death as it faced off with a black runner; the knowledge of the natural world possessed by her older, more experienced siblings as they informed her, "Aw, that ain't nuthin but a black runner!  They ain't poisonous. Come on, let's see if we can catch it!"

I love it when they go fishin with other kids and realize that they really are different. 

Having said all that, today we caught only half enough for a meal so we left our fishing poles in place which is a way to force us to return to finish catching enough to eat.

And the Collins Kids are a wee bit harder - one step closer to the Spartan ideal.

Sounds like a wonderful training exercise and family moment. I'm sure my forays to the grocery store with children to figure out the cost per unit and nutritional value of a purchase rate right up there as a learning experience, but yours is much more fun.

Right on George, glad to hear it's not all work down there. Oh, wait, maybe it is? Lol. I'd love to see the creek, it sounds like fishing there has almost nothing in common with it here. Here it's all fast water and anadromous fish.

Here's what the creek looks like:


(Pay no attention to the girl . . . it's just my middle daughter and the only opportunity she represents is the opportunity for one to test one's bullet stopping capabilities. (That ain't a joke.))

And while we were fishing, this dude came floating his big ass 'cross th'creek:



That there is a timber rattler.

And as soon as I can figger out how to do so, my eldest daughter took a pretty cool video sequel to this photograph.

When we got home this afternoon, the tally was 12 yesterday and 19 today. The "creel" was an assortment of red bellies (aka Red Breasted Perch), bream and channel catfish.

It's a beautiful spot George, thanks for posting those. We don't have any poisonous snakes here, so that thing freaks me right out! That sounds like a pretty good haul as well, looks like your raisin' up a crew with a knack for bringing home a meal.

Aw man George, I'm sitting here just laughing, saying "wow!" over and over. You guys are too cool, I can tell how much fun you all have together. That's wonderful. And, you're freaking crazy man.

My favorite, "Don't worry, Dad knows how to catch 'em." Awesome.

Matt, the one with so much confidence in her dad is the youngest girl. She is fearless in her own right as well. She often shows up her older brothers and is nick-named "Bessie" after my paternal grandmother where the fearless gene derives from. Some of my earliest memories are of fishing this very creek with her which puts to mind a story:

After my grandfather died, she had to have a fishing buddy. As luck would have it, there was a gentleman in the community whose wife had died and as such, he needed a cook. Since he loved to fish and since my grandmother didn't mess up most things she cooked too bad, they hooked up. One day, they were fishing this very creek but about a 1/2 mile South of where these photos were taken. My grandmother had a minnow suspended under a cork that she was watching intently when it went outta sight. What happened next is the stuff of local legend . . .

She started making her characteristic, "Everybody look cause I done gone a caught a big'un" cry that sounded akin to some phonetic spellings of the rebel yell I've seen crossed with a screaming banshee.

Her boyfriend started yelling encouragement, "Lay with'im, Bessie - land that fish girl - come on, Bessie - pull'im in - pull'im easy now - ease'im up here I got the net rea . . ."

As she finally got the monster fish to the surface they both realized that it waddn't no fish. Rather it was a water moccasin. And then the howls of laughter started. But it waddn't her laughter that that was bellowing through the swamp. It was his. He was laughing . . . LAUGHING! at her! "Oh no you don't laugh at ME!" He proly conveyed via his laughing, "NOW what're you gunna do? HOW you gonna get THAT off'n yore hook?"

Well, what are boyfriend/fishing buddies for if not to take certain unsavory creatures off'n a lady's hook?

And yet there he was laughing! The injustice of it all!

Unable to tolerate such behavior, she picked the snake clear of the water, swung it with a hand many, many years in practice of swinging red bellies onto the bank and plopped it right smack-dab-dead-center of dude's lap.

Y'all ever seen a 75ish year old man break 10 in the 100-yard dash.

She said he did.

I don't know if he actually broke a 10, but it put a deffinite stop to his laughing.

Then there was the time the same dude got toasted. She told him to sit down and shut up THREE times. Problem was he got loud and obnoxious four times. That fourth time, she came outta her chair like Tyson. Boyfriend slept it off in her flower bed.

I was there for that one.

Remind me NOT to Tick off your Grandma, or your Daughter for that matter.

Yeah, I'm just gonna try to stay on the right side of the whole clan. Sounds like some genes you don't wanna mess with. Y'all and your snakes. Sheesh!