dirtlooter
Gold Member
- Jun 5, 2014
- 8,889
- 13,497
- 🏆 Honorable Mentions:
- 3
- Detector(s) used
- XP Deus with 9"LF and 9" HF Coils and 600 Equinox with stock and 6" coils
- Primary Interest:
- Relic Hunting
Was going by an area that reminded me of times long gone past, of my grandfather and myself fishing in a large creek. My grandfather grew up in pretty tough times as did a lot of people of this area of Arkansas, he worked hard on the railroad and worked hours after that into the dark on his many gardens. He came through a time of little, especially meat and so all forms of meat were like a prize to him. He meant for the gardens to feed his family and any meat was a bonus. He would eat a young possum every year when I knew him to remind himself of the lean times. He had a saying that was basically this, "anything that would make a turd could save a life and if you won't eat something, you just weren't hungry enough." He also loved to fish and kept everything that he caught no matter the size or kind and ate them. He would keep fish so small that they would actually disappear down the drain in the kitchen. He once caught a bunch of small chubs in a creek while we were swimming, he fried them all and ate them. So, when fishing, he used a very small hook in order to catch the smaller fish and it would cost him occasionally. I had seen him strip down numerous times to go in after a hung up hook. So, we were fishing a Louis Creek, I was on one side of this long hole and he was across the creek from me. This hole was on Bill Reid's land, an old family friend and who was very hard of hearing. Bill showed up and hurried around to my grandfather's side to talk with him. In short order, in order to actually talk to Bill, my grandfather stuck his pole in the fork of a small tree and turned around to speak. While they spoke, I could see that he was getting a bite and then could tell that the fish had swallowed the hook. His pole was a very limber fiberglass one and the small perch was giving it fits. Suddenly the pole doubled over as a much bigger fish swallowed the little fish. I quickly got my grandfather's attention, he was angry at me for interrupting but quickly changed his mind. Grabbing the pole, he immediately began lifting the huge fish up out of the water. We all watched as almost the whole fish came out, one easily over seven or eight pounds. Old Bill was excited and saying all kinds of things when the little fish popped out of the big fish's mouth. My grandfather watched silently as they big bass slid back into the water out of sight. I can still hear Bill telling him that it was too bad, that was a really big one. Of course my grandfather immediately caught another small fish and left it on the same way but nothing ever happened again. We still caught a mess of medium to small fish but the one would have fed us like kings. I can still see his face and the excitement of having such a huge fish on, what a memory. So I stopped and told my wife about it, she gets pretty excited over big fish too. Both men are long gone, that was 45 years ago, I just don't think that he could imagine people getting food stamps or so many people getting over weight. Times have sure changed and so have the people. DL
