Catfish1

[GeneH]

  Chris when I was about 6 or 7 I was spending the summer with my Grand Parents in Mississippi.  GrandPa did not have a boat so we went out to the barn and pulled 6 boards off the side.  The barn was made of cypress and some of the boards were 3 ft wide.  In about 4 hours we had a trough that he called a boat.  A bit of pitch and a borrowed 5hp Johnson with a home made paddle we went fishing.  We went out into the Mississippi River in that rig and run troutlines and jugs for about 3 days and put close to 500 lbs of fish in the freezer.  Ignorance is bliss!  ;D  It is men like him who built this country because no one was telling them they could not do it.
  I have bobbed my boat in the Big Muddy a few times and on the Arkansas at flood stage.  I am in more danger in the bath tub then out on the river.  And if I am to die and can not be at the controls of a sawmill then may the Good Lord allow me to be on the river with a pole in my hand or in the woods with a gun.
  I have been trying to bust the 90 lb mark on cats for several years now.  Catfishing is a most relaxing way to spend the day while waiting on a small freshwater whale to eat your bait.  Besides they eat good and are easy to clean and do not have many bones.  There is nothing like setting out some jugs at dark and heading down stream to a sand bar and setting up the coleman stove and making a pot of coffee and waiting for the jugs to float down.  Then going out and finding them to see what you have caught.  My sons will look back on those times just like I look back on that trough that GrandPa and I made and caught all those fish.  My son still tells me he is sorry for the time he knocked the huge flathead off my line because he forgot to take the cover off the tip of the gaff and that was 15 years ago.  Soon my grandsons will be big enough to float the rivers with me and be catching fish that weigh more then they do.
  Do us all a favor and take a kid fishing.  Catfish are easy to catch in most places and kids like nothing more then spending time with you if they are getting some bites.  From a mud bank with a cane pole to a high dollar boat with the finest tackle it makes no difference to them just spending time and catching fish does.  They may tell you how board they are or how they hate it but they will remember it either way.

This story needs to be in Field & Stream!