Gone Fishing

Billy Whitehead

Joe Whitehead is my dad and I can tell you that he loved nothing better than to be out hunting or fishing. He always had dogs and other equipment related to hunting or fishing. His dogs were well cared for and each named with a personal name for that dog.

I was never sure if he loved the challenge of the hunt or fishing trip or if it was the successful hunt of bagged game or a line full of fish all for the table. Then maybe it was both.

After dad sold the farm in 1950 we moved to the delta town of Glenn Allen on the bank of Lake Washington. We lived about ½ mile north of town. The house was across the blacktop road from the lake. I would walk to school and back. Dad kept several hundred set-hooks in the water at any given time. He would check one group in the morning and the other in the evening freezing the catch in two freezers. On Friday he would load a freezer in his truck then head out to Louisville or Macon to peddle his catch. One time he hired a helper named Sammy Orange. He and Sammy had sold every fish he had except for a bunch of Gar. No-one wanted to fool with Gar. Likely they did not want to fool with them because they were long and had awful teeth. Dad decided to dress them and try again. They went to the Foot Road south of town and skinned all the fish. When they stopped there was much interest in dressed fish. Several were standing around talking about the dressed fish when someone ask, “What kind fish is them?” To which Sammy quickly detecting a good sale said, “Them is Speckled Trout!” They sold every single fish in that one stop.

One morning there arrived three men from Louisville asking if dad had any crappie. Dad told them that he likely had some across the lake in a fish trap. They talked him into going across the lake in their boat. He reluctantly agreed as the water was rather calm. They were about 1/4^th across when a small wave splashed into the boat. One man panicked and jumped out of the boat yelling that “We are sinking!” As he jumped another went in after him because he could not swim. Both men drowned. Dad often said that he should have held out for his larger boat.

One time he asked me if I had been fishing lately. I told him that I had not had time lately as I had been busy with a night job. He very quickly said that when it comes to fishing you have to make the time.

While working for the Borden Coffee Factory the plant acquired the lease of a 20 acre lake for the use of the employees. All employees and their immediate family were allowed to fish in the lake at no cost to them. The employees cleaned around the bank and built a launching area for boats. There was a large picnic table and a brick barbecue pit.

There were not many weeks that Joe was not at the lake. His favorite was bream. He would not throw a bass back but he was out for the bream. Many times he would bring home ten to twenty hand size bream, clean them and fry them up for supper. Bait? He would use whatever was at hand but crickets or earth worms were always at hand. When Catawba worms in season he would pack them in cornmeal then freeze them. The cornmeal kept them from sticking together. I have seem him catch large roaches for bate but he did not care for them. They were simply handy.

Dad had a wood boat at the lake which he preferred to the aluminum boats because the wood boats were much quieter. He used a three foot paddle and he usually sat at the end. He could navigate the boat into a possible fish bed without disturbing the fish. He knew every place where one might catch a fish. If there were a child with him he would place the child in perfect position to catch one. Most of the time he would see a fish in the water and tell the child, “put your hook right there,” pointing to the place.

Dad often fished the Noxubee River. He would keep about 100 set-hooks and ten or twelve “throw lines.” The set hooks were tied to a limb from a boat. The throw lines were tied to a larger branch or to a root.

A throw line is a line of 100 to 200 feet with a hook every three feet or so. Later there were limits to the length and number of hooks as well there had to be a short length of cotton line. This was a safety consideration to allow the line to break if abandoned in the water.

Needless to say, there was a basket somewhere along the way.

Dad’s basket was made of 1X2 mesh wire, 5 feet tall. He would cut a section 12 feet long. Two ends were turned together then clamped with hog rings however he would rather use small copper wire to lace the ends together. One end was compressed together and clamped together leaving a section of 18 inches which was laced for accessing to remove the fish. On the other end he made a funnel shape by trimming a rough triangle. This was laced into the open end. This end was placed downstream. For bait he liked to go to Leland Oil Mill over in the delta town of Leland, Mississippi, for cottonseed cake. He would break off a piece about the size of two hands. This was tied to the upstream end and thrown out into the river tied to the bank by a piece of telephone wire. This wire was rubber coated an when placed into the dark water it looked like a small root.

One evening about dusk, when I was about 12, dad ask me to go with him. We waked to the railroad and crossed the river over the railroad trestle. We then walked about ½ mile upstream where he eased down the wet bank and reached under the water and pulled the line. He told me, “we got a catch.” He pulled the basket out of the water. Inside there were likely 150 fish. He selected fish as large as his arm and threw the others back. He then cut two saplings about two inches around and about five or six feet long. On these branches he strung the fish. We shouldered the ends on our shoulders and headed back to the house with about 100 channel-cat fish. We skinned the fish and froze them.

In 1978 dad and a friend went to the river to check a basket. They floated down to a location where a basket was anchored in midstream. They threw out a grab and pulled it in. Just as they hefted it into the basket someone on the south bank spoke, “I caught you!” They dropped the basket into the water and left. Later they heard that this man had called the Game Warden. They checked but never sound the basket as the man had told them the wrong location. Dad never forgot that and slowed down his basket fishing.

Was it legal to use the baskets? No it was not and he knew it. He began using baskets to feed his family. I believe that the game wardens knew this as it was known by so many. In fact, one of the wardens had fished with him before he became a warden.

I cannot ever remember dad wasting any game he caught or killed. He might give some to others but he never was wasteful. Dad was one who took care of his own. Yet he took time to do for others. I do not remember one time that he did not help when one ask.

Daddy delited in his grandkids. He would sit in the floor to play with them but to take them fishin, he was in his greatest form.