DATE: December
10, 1995
INTERVIEWER:
LOCATION: Edward
Couvillier’s house on Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish,
COOPERATORS: Edward
Couvillier, Lena Mae Couvillier, David Daigle
JD: And what I want to ask you about it, if I could, Edward, uh, tell me about the hooks yall used to use when you first started fishin as a young boy. What about the hooks that yall used to use? What were they? How big were they? Where did yall get em? Where were they…what were they made of? How long did they last?
Edward: They didn’t last long. They last…up to two, three months – summertime. Wintertime they last longer in the winter.
JD: They did?
Edward: Yeah. You get em off them fishboats.
JD: They’d carry em on the fishboats?
Edward: Oh yeah, umhm.
JD: And what size hooks were they?
Edward: They was 2/0, 3/0. A different type than we got now, got stainless now, you know.
JD: Different types? Were they the same shape?
Edward: Yeah, mostly. Used to be a hook called Kirby, was crooked.
JD: A Curvey [Kirby]?
Edward: Yeah. [motions how it was crooked]
JD: Instead of comin straight like that, they, they were bent like that?
Edward: Yeah, they call that a Kirby.
JD: Eagle Claw, oh, Kirby?
Edward: Yeah.
JD: Eagle Claw makes a hook like that, I believe…
Edward: Now Eagle Claw, but used to be they didn’t have Eagle Claw. There used to be a Phlueger…
JD: Phlueger, that’s what they were?
Edward: Yeah.
JD: Were they brown or silver?
Edward: They were black.
JD: Black.
Edward: Yeah.
JD: They were regular steel?
Edward: Oh yeah.
JD: They, uh, they lost their point?
Edward: Aw, they’d rust.
JD: They’d rust.
Edward: Rust out, yeah.
JD: The whole hook?
Edward: Aw yeah.
JD: I seem to recall they’d, uh, [other talk, a child] they’d rust out around the eye, wouldn’t they?
Edward: Yeah. Eye…
JD: …where the stageon was tied around the hook?
Edward: Yeah. And the point would rust off.
JD: And they’d last two or three weeks? Two or three months?
Edward: Whatever. They’d last better in the wintertime than they would in the summertime.
JD: Why do you suppose that is?
Edward: I dunno. There’s something in the water in the summertime they don’t have in the wintertime… I don’t what it would be. I guess it’s the cold, you know?
JD: Maybe it’s the cold itself that, uh, that maybe the process of rusting itself is faster when it’s hot than when it’s cold.
Edward: Yeah, you take a stainless steel hook in the wintertime, well a fish’s mouth won’t rot. Summertime, overnight, two days, well that’s it, you gone lose him cause his mouth rots.
JD: Mouth rots.
Edward: Wintertime, they don’t do that in the winter.
JD: Now, when yall fished, um, we talking about fishing bentlines or tight lines you talking about with those hooks? How about with the 2/0s….?
Edward: Used to fish a lot of…lot of…uh, bushlines.
JD: Well I was about to ask you about bushlines. What…when you first learned to fish, when you were…how old were you, you think, when you first went out by yourself in a lil boat, or whatever, to fish lines?
Edward: Aw, about ten years old.
JD: Ten years old? Did you set em yourself? Or did…
Edward: …yeah.
JD: You set em at ten years old?
Edward: Aw yeah.
JD: And, uh, what kind of lines?
Edward: Bushlines, mostly.
JD: Bushlines mostly. So how many would you set?
Edward: Aw, wasn’t many, fifty, forty, something like that.
JD: You’d hang em from what? Hang em from poles or hang em from the trees?
Edward: From the trees.
JD: You wouldn’t set poles in the ground, uh…?
Edward: Uhuh. Back in them days you didn’t have to…you had cypress trees all the way around…
JD: It was mostly from cypress trees?
Edward: Yeah.
JD: How would you know where to set a bushline?
Edward: You just set it anywhere they had a good limb [laughs].
JD: What about the water, though, you didn’t have…?
Edward: You had clear water all the time; you didn’t have to worry about water then.
JD: You didn’t have a place though, where you had a tree…I heard if there was an eddy behind a tree or something like that…if you set a bushline there it was likely to have a big fish…
Edward: Sometimes, you know…you didn’t have that many…that many trees with eddies behind em, you know. You had to set em just about anywhere. But see back in them days, when the bank would come off…like this was the edge of the bank right here, well straight down you had four foot of water.
JD: You did? You didn’t have a gradual slope at all?
Edward: No, uhuh! I mean, straight down.
JD: Why do you suppose that was?
Edward: Well, didn’t have all that sand in here like we got now.
JD: But you used the same sized hooks on those bushlines that they used on regular lines? Small hooks? Two ought?
Edward: Mostly three ought. Cause back in them days you had plenty big fish.
JD: 3/0? So you did use a bigger hook than you did on bentlines.
Edward: Yeah. You had some people used them, uh, six and eight.
JD: Six
Edward: Big, big hooks
JD: Great big hooks.
Edward: Yeah, they used to catch goujons, specially when the water was up in the woods, you’d catch 50, 60,70 pound goujons on them lines. Blue cats too.
JD: You would…you would, uh, you talking about on…still on bushlines in the woods?
Edward: Yeah. In the woods. That’s what they used to fish mostly, was…
JD: So you didn’t set em right along the bayou then, right along the edge?
Edward: When the water’s up, when the water’s up you go in the woods with em.
Lena Mae: When the water’s down, you fish the lakeshore.
JD: Right on the edge?
Edward: Man
I seen…come up to a…a…a line Jim,
JD: Off the bush you got it tied to?
Edward: A big fish, take it and go plumb under with that sucker. And let it come back up. [laughs, whistles]. Yeah, you knew…you knew you had a big one when you had one like that.
JD: And that cypress limb doesn’t often break off…?
Edward: Uhuh,
naw, they’d bend. Buttonwood limbs
JD: What was it like? Start at the beginning of the year. How was it like for the whole year…for what lines you fished?
Edward: Well,
it was usually pretty good in the wintertime, uh, if you get live bait, stuff…bait…go
in them lil bayous
JD: To fish what kind of lines though, in the winter?
Edward: Uh, crossings.
JD: Crossings? Cross bayou?
Edward: Cross the bayou, yeah.
JD: Not in the lake? Not, not, uh…
Edward: Uhuh. They didn’t have too much lake fishin, mostly they had all them big bayous people would fish in.
JD: Oh, really, so they didn’t fish that much in the lake, in the open lake itself?
Edward: Uhuh. Now down here, [the lake further south, around Blue Point] this part they would.
JD: Oh,
you talking about up around Keelboat, and
Edward: Yeah,
down here where Myon was at, they fished the lake.
JD: Too deep?
Edward: Too
deep. We didn’t have jigger poles like
we have now. See, people didn’t know
about all that. You cut your poles
JD: Sure, sure, sure.
Edward: Fifteen foot a water, it was almost impossible to make a, a line.
JD: When do you suppose jigger poles were, were invented, I mean…
Edward: Well, they had em…they had em back in them days, uh, but there’s nobody fish lines with em…they didn’t…
JD: They were like, nets, instead? [used for]
Edward: Just for nets.
JD: OK, so in other words, the only kind of…the only kind of bridle you would make in those days was tied onto a pole
Edward: On a pole, onto a pole.
JD: So, and your pole had to be…had to be driven from the top.
Edward: Right.
JD: But they were usin stobs to drive…to hold nets with, even in those days.
Edward: Aw yeah.
JD: But people hadn’t started usin stobs to fish lines with? I see, I see.
Edward: No.
JD: Well, that’s interesting, Edward.
Edward: Yeah.
JD: So,
up there around
Edward: Naw, bayous. You take Keelboat, might have been as wide as from here across the bayou [Teche]. You could take…you could take a crossing clean across, without no…you could tie it from bank to bank.
JD: You didn’t have to put an anchor in the middle like we do in the channel?
Edward: Aw naw. The only time you couldn’t fish was high water…with high water you couldn’t fish bayous.
JD: Too much current?
Edward: Too much current. Course you could fish, like, uh, Bayou Catfish cause they didn’t have like a main stream that was comin out. It was all branches.
JD: Yeah, umhm.
Edward: You had current in em, but they didn’t have plenty current.
JD: Well,
people…places like
Edward: Well,
the main…that was just like the
JD:
Edward: Yeah. You could fish in there with lines cause they didn’t have a lot of current in it.
JD: Now, at what time did you start learning to fish bentlines?
Edward: Aw, man, that was years later when we…in fact, when we moved over here.
JD: When
you moved over to, uh, to
Edward: Yeah, on this side.
JD: On this side? So it was not till after 1945 you learned to fish bentlines?
Edward: Yeah.
JD: And who did you learn that from? Everybody?
Edward: Everybody was fishing that way, and you just fall in with the crowd, you know, that was it [laughs].
JD: Umhm. Umhm. umhm.
Edward: There wasn’t nobody had to really teach you how to do nothing, you know, you just…you learn it…you knew…you see somebody else do it, you could do it. That was it, you know?
JD: Well, I mean, but you did learn. Even if it’s to just watch somebody one time. At least you had to watch somebody one time to see what they did? Then you could go ahead.
Edward: Oh, yeah. People tell you what they doin, you know, how they putting them out, stuff like that. But, fer as shrimp bushes we always…we always fish bushes about like everybody fish now, you know. You get along the bank, tie em off of the bank.
JD: Didn’t some people dip willow roots for shrimp too, from time to time?
Edward: Well, Neg and them did that for years.
JD: Instead of tying bushes?
Edward: Yeah. I could make 25 bushes; catch all the shrimps
you want in about 15 minutes. Him
JD: Double hand full.
Edward: I guess they didn’t like to make bushes, or whatever, I don’t know what…what they problem was.
JD: What did you use for sinkers up there, when you were up around Keelboat?
Edward: We used to get, uh, bolts and nuts or whatever, old scrap iron…
JD: I guess you had the timber industry around…
Edward: Chain dogs, them old chain dogs, chain dog made a excellent…
JD: I
bet they did. What is it? Two spikes
Edward: Yeah. Two spikes
JD: Umhm. Perfect sinkers.
Edward: That’s mostly what people had, chain dogs.
JD: Chain dogs?
Edward: Yeah. Them big old steamboats would come by there, and they’d…I seen em pile up on the end of them booms of timber…two foot high…you could …up there, get all you want.
JD: How about, uh, how about line itself? Starting back from the very beginning, what did yall do about line? What sizes and so on? What was it like?
Edward: Well, it was old cotton line, it wouldn’t last, it would rot.
JD: How long would it last? Usually, in water?
Edward: It wouldn’t last but over three or four months.
JD: About the same time as the hooks would last? Would they both go about the same time?
Edward: Aw, yeah. You take a hoop net, a hoop last would last long, but they put em out and fish em for about two, three weeks at the most. They’d pull em up and dry em and then they’d tar e. And they did that time after time…In the summertime you couldn’t hardly fish…maybe two weeks. Put them nets out there you had to pick em up, clean em, put em on the bank [and] let em dry, and you’d tar em. Most of the fishermen had enough nets they could just replace…
JD: Swap, yeah. So they were always tarrin?
Edward: Yeah. Aw, yeah.
JD: What
did yall do…how, what was the line like when you would buy it? Could you buy [.]36
Edward: Yeah. Yeah, you could buy 36.
JD: Would you buy it by the pound?
Edward: Yeah, it came in, uh, some of it five pound hanks, some of it in pound hanks.
JD: Now, you talking about hanks, so it wasn’t rolled like you buy it now?
Edward: No, it was just hanked up.
JD: Just rolled…loose, real loose.
Edward: Aw yeah, just a hank. Course it was done with a machine, you know? It was more even.
JD: Yeah, was it tied around the hank, around there with small line…?
Edward: Yeah, different places it was tied.
JD: It would be tied up?
Edward:
JD: But it was still sold by the pound, though.
Edward: Yeah, oh yeah.
JD: Just like today, you get more in .36 than you would in .48.
Edward: Well, nylon now, uh, you take your [.] 15 nylon would hold better than your [.] 48 cotton line back in them days, you know?
JD: Yeah.
Edward: Cause it was…nylon is tough. And old cotton line wasn’t that tough, it would break easier.
JD: Did you, uh, did yall dip that cotton line when you were using it?
Edward: Oh yeah, umhm.
JD: What did you use to dip it in?
Edward: Coal tar.
JD: You actually used coal tar, same as the nets?
Edward: That’s all they had, coal tar. You had coal tar and, uh, red lead.
JD: Red lead?
Edward:
JD: And it would make the line stiff?
Edward: Yeah.
JD: But it still wouldn’t last eh?
Edward: Uhuh.
JD: I wonder how long it would last if you didn’t treat it or dip it at all?
Edward: Aw, it wouldn’t last no time.
JD: A week, you think, two weeks?
Edward: Oh, it would last longer than that, but it wouldn’t last long.
JD: Umhm.
Edward: I remember, you get out there and get you a bunch a lines together, get em out, fish em…maybe a month or two months, three months whatever, they’d last better in the wintertime than would in the summertime. First thing you know the fish would go to bitin and go out there and start your line [and it would] be breakin in half.
JD: In your hand?
Edward: Yeah. Then you’d have to be changing line.
JD: You try to do the whole thing all at once, or you had…the main line, the stageons, the hooks all brand new at the same time?
Edward: Aw yeah. Umhm.
JD: They would all wear out at the same time?
Edward: Sometime the stageons would go faster cause they was smaller.
JD: The stageon was?
Edward: Yeah.
JD: How about, uh, talking about stageons, how about swivels? What’d yall do for swivels?
Edward: Used to make those.
JD: I’ve seen em make em out of those two nails. What did yall do?
Edward: One nail.
JD: One nail?
Edward: Well, I used to make some out of two nails, no, it was one nail and a wire.
JD: And a wire?
Edward: Yeah. And Ida
JD: What did that look like? Can you draw that? Could you draw that? What the swivel looked like?
Edward: Yeah.
JD: [to Lena Mae] Edward’s going to draw me a swivel here, like he used to make em.
Edward: You see, like you had a eye here…
JD: You’d make a ring?
Edward: Yeah, you’d come on down here, and you’d make another eye, but it would be turned thisaway, you see? And you nail, this would be you nail would come…
JD: Alright, your nail would come thru there.
Edward: And then you nail would turn up…
JD: In
another eye, so you had a piece of…you had…you made, you made a 90…you made one
eye in the top of the wire
Edward: Right, so the nail would go…
JD: And the nail head would slip into that eye right there, and then you would make a loop in the bottom of the nail to be your bottom.
Edward: Right, and when you put…when you put it on your hook, like when you stage it?...
JD: Yeah.
Edward: Well, you didn’t want to put your hook on the nail part.
JD: You didn’t put your hook on the nail part?
Edward: Naw, cause you see if your hook would come up, you line would come over here and it wouldn’t swivel. You’d turn it over and then it culdn’t hang up.
JD: So you’d attach it, you’d attach the, uh, …
Edward: The hook to the wire.
JD: The hook to the wire and the nail to the main line.
Edward: And then Ida and them used to make em like this, you see, they would…it’s made like this…would come down, and you had two loops and you’d bend em over, and they’d meet one another.
JD: Two loops.
Edward: Yeah, your nail would come thru here.
JD: OK, so in other words, OK…
Edward: And over here, you didn’t want to put your hook on your, uh, on your wire part, you had to put it on your nail part.
JD: The other way around.
Edward: Cause, if you had it the other way, Jim, that line would come around…it would get over here, it would hang up. Not all the time, but most times it would.
JD: So, you had to put it one way on the single swivel and one way on the double swivel.
Edward: Right, you put it on…you put you hook on you nail part on this’n and your wire part on this’n here.
JD: How did yall make these little, uh, these little circles, these little eyes on that wire?
Edward: Pliers, pliers.
JD: You do it by hand with pliers?
Edward: You had…you had a pair of pliers that would cut, you had one side…and a little further down you had a smaller…like, like for your nail you had to have a small hole. Well, up here you had to have a bigger hole. You had a bigger part on your pliers and that’s what you bent your wire with.
JD: Where did the pliers come from?
Edward: You bought em. You had to buy em and make em.
JD: Ready-made pliers?
Edward: Naw, you had to make em. You had to file em.
JD: Needle nosed pliers?
Edward: Needle nose pliers…you can cut em off and you, and you, uh…back in them days you had files, now you’d have grinders to do it…wouldn’t be no problem. Back in them days they didn’t have grinders…you take a pair…a file.
JD: A regular hand file.
Edward: Right
JD: And you would grind the needle nose down to where it was the right diameter for one, and you slip the other one…
Edward: Right, and a lil further down you get a lil bit smaller, for your hole, for your nail cause it had to be a small…just for that nail size, I believe it was a number three nail…number two, number two or three nail.
JD: And it was, uh, galvanized nail [yes]?
Edward: And you take this…this swivel here, they used to make it out of number 14 wire. [he’s pointing at the double one].
JD: Fourteen wire?
Edward: Yeah, this’n here you had to have a bigger wire, it was a number 12.
JD: Number 12 wire.
Edward: Yeah.
JD: And what was the wire? Just regular iron, black wire?
Edward: Just regular iron wire. It wasn’t black, no, galvanized.
JD: Galvanized.
Edward: Umhm.
JD: And how long did the swivels…did the swivels outlast…?
Edward: Aw, them swivels there will outlast the ones you buy.
JD: But, they did outlast the line though?
Edward: Oh, yeah! Yeah.
JD: You saved your swivels, in other words, when you threw away your old…
Edward: What would really wear out, lot of times, would be your nail head.
JD: Because of it’s moving in there?
Edward: Movin, and it would wear out…lot of times that’s where it would pull in two at.
JD: Umhm. Umhm.
Edward: But that’s all I used to use. I never did like these kind, Jesse and Ida made…
JD: [That’s the double kind he’s talking about ]
Edward: They
made thousands and thousands of them thing.
People from
JD: Is that right?
Edward: But I made my own, I always made my own.
JD: How big were they?
Edward: They was about that long.
JD: About an inch, the whole thing?
Edward: Maybe a lil over a inch. It was…it wasn’t big.
JD: Have to get you to, uh, have to get you to made me some, of both kinds, so I can take pictures of em. So you’d take up your line and you’d save your swivel.
Edward: Oh yeah! Until they’d wear out, when they go to pullin thru then you start changing swivels.
JD: Ida did the double ones. Hunh?
Edward: Umhm.
JD: Where’d she learn to do that, you suppose?
Edward: Hm. I don’t know. They’d been doin that ever since I can remember. They made them things by the thousands.
JD: Really?
Edward: Umhm.
JD: And she’d sell em huhh?
Edward: Yeah. It didn’t take long to make a swivel. Man, I could throw you a hundred of em together in 30 minutes.
JD: Is that right?
Edward: Oh yeah. Didn’t take long. And then, them days, there’s a lot of people didn’t use no swivels atall. Course they lost a lot of fish. People didn’t make swivels. Like on a bushline, stuff like that, well you didn’t…you didn’t…you didn’t hardly use no swivel on a bushline.
JD: You didn’t put a swivel on a bushline?
Edward: Uhuh.
JD: Why do you think not?
Edward: Well, you had more line, I mean…
JD: Oh, it could twist further.
Edward: Yeah, it could twist further.
JD: Without it getting up tight up against something.
Edward: Yeah, right. Umhm. But on a short…man on a short stageon, a 14 inch stageon? That fish would get in that current? That sucker twist off inen minutes.
JD: Really?
Edward: Aw yeah. They get in that current, man you see em [motions spinning around].
JD: So it was more the current that caused this…caused you to put swivels on your line.
Edward: Yeah, umhm.
JD: So, Lena Mae, you were down on this end [Myette Pt./Blue Point]. Uh, you remember your Daddy fishin, uh, bentlines, in the lake?
Lena Mae: Oh yeah.
JD: How far back you think you can remember that? Did he always fish bentlines in the lakes, in the lake?
Lena Mae: Ever since I can remember…young [old?] enough to remember.
JD: Yeah? And, he drove poles in the lake bottom to hang a line from? He didn’t use stobs? Didn’t use a jigger pole?
Lena Mae: Drive a row of poles, poles would stick out the water, I guess, about this far [about four feet].
Edward: …get some drift come down…!
JD: I was about to say, the drift would take all that line, if it hung up.
Edward: Aw yeah.
Lena Mae: If it would pass, yeah.
Edward: You see, that kind of line, even drift that was on top the water would catch a pole.
JD: Well, that’s what I mean.
Edward: Only way, on [using a] jigger pole, what get your line, when you get a whole tree come down and draggin the bottom…it would take everything.
JD: Yeah
Edward: Just drift floatin on top the water, well…kind of line we fish now you ain’t got no problem
Lena Mae: Jim
I remember, the year that was so bad, I was the oldest one, and then we had
JD: Dead moss?
Lena Mae: Yeah. And we trade it with the fishboat when it
come,
JD: The ice had cut it?
Lena Mae: Ice, had cut all the lines off. He didn’t have no more lines left.
JD: So he didn’t get a chance to make any money to pay back that ten pounds of line?
Lena Mae: Not at all. Not at all.
JD: Plus the stageons, plus the hooks, plus everything.
Lena Mae Everything, everything went. There wasn’t nuttin to be found. The lake was pretty deep then, you see, and the drift, and…took everything
JD: How, uh, how much of the lake would be, uh, would he be able to fish with those bentlines…you say he came sometimes all the way across?
Lena Mae: Sometimes he came almost across the lake with a row of line.
JD: But it must have been he found some places where it was shallow enough to drive those poles?
Lena Mae: Yeah, I mean it wasn’t too deep to drive poles. You know?
JD: OK. So the lake must have averaged then…well, you would drive your poles in low water? I guess?
Lena Mae: Anytime we needed em, we drive em.
JD: Umhm. OK.
That’s interesting that, uh, that Gr
Lena Mae: Oh, everybody was fishing…Uncle Alvin, all of em, up the country.
JD: They were fishing with crossings mainly?
Lena Mae: Yeah. Umhm, bentlines [too].
JD: Bentlines? Anywhere there’s enough lake to do it?
Lena Mae: Yeah.
JD: When did yall start using jiggerpoles, you think?
Edward: Oh, I imagine back in the 40s, oh, later than that.
Lena Mae: After than that, Daddy [later].
Edward: Oh, the 50s, I guess.
Lena Mae: We was married.
JD: Yall was married when you started using jiggerpoles to set your lines?
Lena Mae: Oh, yeah.
Edward: It was the late 50s.
JD: How about floats? What did yall use for floats back there at the beginning?
Edward: Glass bottles.
JD: Glass?
Lena Mae:
Edward:
JD: You could do that too?
Edward: Oh yeah. You get them…you go out and cut then cypress knees and peel em? And let em dry for two, three weeks and bore a hole in em, tie your line in, and that made a real good…but most of the, uh, if you didn’t have that you go find you…you could…just like now you [have] plastic bottles all over? Well you could find glass jugs, bottles, all over and that’s what you’d use.
JD: Glass jugs?
Edward: Glass jugs.
JD: Or cypress knees.
Edward: Yeah. See, didn’t have no plastic or they didn’t have no Styrofoam or, didn’t have none a that.
JD: Umhm. Well, no, because a lot of that came after they invented nylon.
Edward: Well, it come after nylon. ….just go find you a piece of wood or something that floats good, yeah. Use that.
JD: How about, uh, you say yall used to…yall used to try to keep your fish alive, as much as you could. I guess you had to keep em all alive, didn’t you, I mean if the fishboat hadn’t come but what? How often did the fishboat come by?
Edward: About twice a week.
JD: Twice a week?
Edward: You had what you call limber holes in your boat, bore a hole? Either on the side or on the bottom, depends what kind of bottom you had, uh, you put em on the side and [it was] just a plug, you know, pull it out and water would go back and forth. That’s one way, but you get just so much water in it that way cuz the boat would float [just] so deep, and that was it. But must of them boats back them days would float eight or ten inches deep in the water, you know? But, but, uh, another way you do it like if you was runnin, you made you a plug and you hollowed it out. And like when you runnin you turn it where that hollow would be towards the front and it would fill that bulkhead up. And when you would want to bail it you just turn it [the plug] backwards and that sucker’d bail it right on out.
JD: Now, what you mean by hollowed? What you mean you’d hollow it out?
Edward: Well, you just take a plug, like you had a plug you’d stick in a hole?
JD:
Edward: You just hollow it out, you see? Half of it.
JD: You’d make a groove down one side of it?
Edward: Right. Just open it up, to where it would be hollow, where water could run through it. You stick it down there, it would go below the bottom of the boat…might stick out that far, and when that water would hit it well it would, it would…
JD: It would force the water inside.
Edward: Into the boat, and when you’d turn it backwards, well naturally it would suck it out.
JD: I’ll be. Look at that, hunh?
Edward: Yeah, we used to do that. Course it only worked when the boat was movin now, it didn’t work when it was…when it was stopped.
JD: Sure, sure. The uh, the uh, the fish that you would catch…you would have to try to bring em back…you would bring em back to the campboat and put em in, uh, in fish cars?
Edward: Fish cars, and put em in there and a lot of times you’d have to throw some overboard cause some of em would die.
JD: They would die anyway?
Edward: Oh, yeah. You see, nets, what they’d do with nets… well, like a boat would come up Monday and Thursday – lot of time that’s the way they’d run, on Monday and a Thursday. Well, that’s when you raised your nets. Like uh, by time he get to us up there on Keelboat it was late, late, that evening. Sometime just at dark he’d…he’d get up there. People would raise they nets well they wouldn’t leave early in the morning, you see, cause they might take two, three hours to raise they nets. Well, they know what time that boat was gone get there and they try to time it to where they’d be done just about the time the boat was there. Cause you couldn’t keep a gou live.
JD: A gou wouldn’t stay alive?
Edward: Oh no, uhuh. That was impossible. And all they did, go raise they nets and when the boat would get there they’d be fresh, he’d weigh em up and ice em down. Always have ice on the boat.
JD: And so if the boat couldn’t come for some reason, broke down, you lost all those fish.
Edward: If the boat broke down, didn’t have no radios, nothing to call you in them days. That was it, you just lost em.
JD: You lost all the fish?
Edward: Oh
yeah. Nothin you could do about it. There wasn’t that many lost, you know, cause
they was pretty…they was pretty accurate…they…Now he leave
Lena Mae: Sometime though we had two fishboats runnin.
Edward: Well they had more than one. He’d stop at his first place and people would buy what they want, and sell they fish or whatever, and get through and he’d leave and go up to the next place. And when he’d get to the house he’d always sleep at the house.
JD: Where you mean, sleep?
Edward: On Keelboat, that where he’d…
JD: At your house?
Edward: Well, he’d sleep on his boat, but that’s where he’d tie up.
JD: Oh, yeah. He’d tie up there?
Lena Mae: He’d either sleep over….[?] or sleep over there at they house.
Edward: That’d
be his last stop. When he got home, he
got his fish iced, he come into the house.
Lotta time momma
JD: Twice a week?
Edward: Oh yeah. So the kids like that too?
Edward: Aw
yeah. Use to make that ice cream. Get up the next morning…now, on the way down
[back to
JD: How many places do you think he stopped on his way up to buy fish?
Edward: Aw, he stopped probly fifty, sixty places.
JD: That many!?
Edward: Aw yeah.
JD: He didn’t go to one place where people had collected all a bunch of fish all at one place?
Edward: Sometime there was, like that. When he get to the house, lot of times there was a whole bunch of us around there well he stop right there and everybody would come in that had fish would come over there and bring their fish.
JD: And you say he would ice em down? He had ice?
Edward: Aw yeah, he’d bring ice.
JD: He didn’t try to bring…try…he didn’t try to transport the fish alive?
Edward: Aw no, uhuh. No, that was all iced fish.
JD: So he’d take em live and ice em right there, when they were live.
Edward: Aw
yeah. Next day he was back in
JD: Always
Lena Mae: That’s where they’d all go.
Edward: We had one old boy used to come from, uh, Percy Wisdom used to run a boat [fishboat] from Bayou Sorrel.
JD: Wisdom?
Edward: Yeah. He had a boat, he’d come down. Had Allen Blanchard, Edric Guidry…
JD: Edric? Was that his name?
Edward: Edric Guidry, umhm.
JD: Now
did these people own the docks in
Edward: Oh no, uhuh. Most of the time the dock man owned the boat, them people run it fer um, for so much a pound. They’d work by the pound. I [mean] Edric oudreaux, I said Guidry, it’s Boudreaux.
JD: Eddy? Edric…Boudreaux. Edric Boudreaux.
Edward: And Allen Blanchard, and, uh…
Lena Mae: Pinkerman Mendoza.
Edward: Pinkerman, Jew Robert
Lena Mae: Mertile Theriot, Pinkerman Mendoza, Allen Blanchard
JD: Pinkerman you sayin? Pinkerman?
Edward: Not all at one time, now, they wouldn’t be all comin by your house at one time. Over the years. They had Jesse Higgins used to run a, a boat.
Lena Mae: Allen Blanchard.
Edward: Dan’s brother in law, he used to run a boat.
JD: Dan Lange?
Edward: Yeah.
Lena Mae: Had another one comin from across here, uh, I can’t remember…
Edward: Jesse Higgins [that was].
Lena Mae: No, no. That wasn’t Jesse Higgins.
Edward: That’s where Jesse was from, Charenton, he haul his fish to Charenton.
Lena Mae: He, he was, he’d go around in a bateau. A big boat, but it was a bateau-type boat.
Edward: Dan had a big bateau.
JD: Well, what kind of boats were the regular fishboats?
Edward: Lugger-type.
JD: What’s the difference between a lugger and a…?
Edward: A lugger is built like this.
JD: A lugger had a point?
Edward: Yeah. Bateau…
JD: OK, but a lugger had a point and was built like a regular pointed boat.
Edward: Yeah. Most of em was luggers.
JD: They were?
Edward: Yeah. Jesse Higgins had a bateau too, one time. Dan had a bateau. Allen had a lugger. Boudreaux had a lugger. Mertile had a lugger. Pinkerman had a lugger. I remember Pinkerman’s boat named Baby Dot.
JD: Baby Dot.
Edward: Name of the boat.
JD: And they had inboard engines, of course, in all of those things? That’s all they had in those days.
Edward: Either Model A’s or Fords.
JD: Model A’s or Fords? Gasoline engines? They get up and move pretty good?
Edward: Aw, they’d make six or eight miles an hour.
JD: That’s all?
Edward: Yeah. But you take from
JD: How much they [the people] wanted to buy?
Edward: Yeah. Sometime he’d get there early; sometime he’d get there a little later, sometime after dark before he come.
JD: And they he’d make his straight run back so he could [?] …the fish would be on ice and he’d have to get back fast.
Edward: You
catch him on the way down if you see him comin he’d stop
JD: Did he make any stops on the other side of the lake, on this side?
Edward: Well, uh, Mertile Theriot used to run up this side and, uh, Jesse Higgins used to run up this side, uh,
Lena Mae: And that other guy I’m thinking about too…used to be on this side.
JD: Where did, uh, where did they stop? I mean, I know on the other side you talking about they’d stop in Bayou Boutte probably, and…
Edward: Well, they stop at every house comin up on this side.
JD: Where did people live on this side?
Edward: People
lived on
JD: Oaklawn
Edward: Oh yeah. Myette Point, then all the way up the channel.
JD: So they had people livin in Myon’s Canal before yall came across the lake all in one bunch and went in there? Was there people there when yall got there?
Lena Mae: At the Canal?
JD: Yeah.
Lena Mae: I wouldn’t know, Jim, I wasn’t born.
JD: OK. No, when yall, uh, when yall came across the lake and settled…came into Myon’s Canal right here by the levee on this side?
Lena Mae: Yeah, and you talking about goin back?
JD: No, comin on this side.
Lena Mae: Oh, there wasn’t nobody here by Lester.
JD: Nobody here by Lester?
Edward: Lester and Hubert Nix.
Lena Mae: Hubert Nix, yeah.
JD: Why did that canal ever get dug? Do you have any idea why did Myon’s Canal…? What was the reason for that canal?
Edward: That used to be a drainage canal
JD: Drainage for what?
Edward: For Southcoast
JD: Before the levee?
Edward: Umhm. ‘sall it was. You see, they had a pump above…up there where the boat landing is now, you go up there…go up that canal they got cement…
JD: Yeah.
Edward: OK, there was a big pump there. And all the fields used to drain [into] them canals and they’d pump it out.
JD: The fields used to drain into they canal and then the…
Edward: Before
they put the levee, you see, the fields go clean to the lake. And all your drainage was goin out to the
lake. So they built them canals, put
levees around…when the water come up, well the water didn’t take the fields. And had to pump it, had to keep it
pumped. And after the levee was built,
well that canal on this side the levee, well that’s the drainage canal. They got a big pump down there at Belleview,
that’s where they…I don’t know if they still…I imagine they still use it. When it rains
JD: Um, um. So that canal’s been there a long time?
Edward: But that’s what them canals are for, you see, out there.
JD: Oaklawn and all of those for that reason.
Edward: They built them levees out there to keep the water out. See Oaklawn, above the boat landing, when you go out…you got that levee all along by the boat landing here, you know, and you go out…well that’s a levee right there. But if you look a lil further down here you got this other ramp come down there. Well, OK, you go on, they still got a levee and it just, it just went on…
JD: Yeah, alongside the, the uh, …
Edward: Right, and up there, up there [at the] first bend, then it come up to the edge of the levee, and that was Southcoast’s property, right there, that’s where it would come up all the way to the edge of the levee. And right in here is where they had that pump.
JD: That’s
Edward: No, up above. Going toward Charenton.
JD: Going towards Charenton from Myette Pt. right now.
Edward: The other’n did the same thing but they didn’t have none for some reason below Myette Pt. …landing, I don’t know why they didn’t have…have a levee there.
[Summary: In the Myette Pt. area there is a set of small levees on the inside of the big levee, along with the canals that the dirt came from to build them. Before the big levee was built, the sugarcane fields came down to the lake edge. In order to protect the fields from the relatively small rises (3-5 feet?) in those days, the levees were built along the lake. But, in doing so rainwater falling on the fields was prevented from draining back into the lake and had to be pumped over/thru the levee system. That’s what Edward is talking about.]
Edward: [looking at a map] That’s your boat landing right here, you come up and land to your boat landing and you got this other ramp that goes across.
JD: Well, yeah, you talking…this is the Myette Pt. landing…?
Edward: Right.
JD: It makes this cove in here like this.
Edward: Right, but see out here where…
JD: There’s a canal all along here…starts right here and goes this way.
Edward: It’s all the way here, Jim. When you comin out the boat landing you got this…
JD: Oh yeah, that’s right, it comes all the way there, that’s right it sure does. But the canal, I thought the canal kind of stopped there.
Edward: Naw, Myon…Myon’s Canal is a lil further down there.
JD: Yeah, it’s up here. And it goes to the levee just like that.
Edward: Right, and you had that levee built up right here, all the way out here, and it was built out here [still looking at a map] you see. Well, let’s say it looks like it’s a lil further out, when you come out from Myon’s [Canal], well you just come on up…
JD: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right, it sure is.
Edward: And you got the cove right here where you unload, and you come out, and you go out and come out in the lake.
JD: That’s right.
Edward: And it used to go all the way. But they done cut a lot of that out. And, over here, I remember when it was [stopped?], you couldn’t get in here with a boat, so they come out here and they cut it right here, and that’s where that canal went all the way out.
JD: Ohhh, is that right?
Edward: Yeah. That was diked right there.
JD: Now, tell me about this again. You say that this canal, this is…this is a, a leveed canal, right here, right? Just like that.
Edward: Right. Your levees, your levees, no, your levees on the outside.
JD: On the outside. They’re outside. Now where…you’re sayin that the drainage from the lake…from the fields, would go where? It would come…?
Edward: It would go into this canal.
JD: But, the canal was all of this.
Edward: Yeah, and you had that pump up here you see, and had that levee all the way up and it [water] come up against the levee up here when…
JD: Make like a big impoundment, like this.
Edward: Right. And if, if you come up here, the levee went here and it crossed on across, back up here where they got a levee go all the way across around Oaklawn field [oilfield] back there. Until they built the big levee, see, and then the big levee, when the big levee crossed, well the levee [small] went up to the levee.
JD: Umhm. From here they would pump water from this side…
Edward: They would pump the whole field. Pump the whole field out…
JD: Over into here…rainwater?
Edward: Yeah. Yeah.
JD: OK, so they built the levee to keep, the, the high water from floodin the fields.
Edward: Right.
JD: But the levee also did the bad thing, it trapped all the rainwater that fell on the fields. They had to pump that over.
Edward: Yeah, umhm. And just like that, that barpit they got behind the levee, there, well, you see Arthur Louviere’s Daddy used to run that pump down there. He lived over there. And long as it didn’t rain he was alright, [then] you get a three, four day rain well he pump 24 hours a day.
JD: You talking about the barpit that you can see on the backside of the levee? Where yall used to live?
Edward: Right. Right.
JD: I thought that was from the levee, when the built the levee.
Edward: Right, they used that to build the levee, but Southcoast had to put some pumps down there cause they wouldn’t had a way to drain it, and get the water out when it rain it would of just kept fillin up. So they had to pump it.
JD: OK, and they pumped it over the levee?
Edward: Pumped it over there into Yellow Bayou. Goes into Yellow Bayou. Pump is still…I’m sure they still use it.
JD: [changing topic] There’s a big gate, I’m tryin to think of where it is. When you come out here, you come out into those big holes? You know there’s a couple big holes here with some willow islands in em? And so on like that? You come around here and you come into a little slough, if you go through…
Edward: That’s where the pump was at.
JD: OK, is that where that…there’s two concrete…looks like a gate, sittin there like this…that’s where the pump was?
Edward: Yeah, yeah. That was a gate. It was a gate.
JD: It was a sluice gate?
Edward: They could open it when the water was down, but when the water was up they couldn’t open it, cause they had to keep em pumped out [they could open the gate and let rainwater out into the lake if the lake was low, but not if the lake was high]
JD: I see, so that’s what that was about. It was all a drainage thing. OK.
Edward: Yep.
JD: What else we got here we can talk about? You can talk about some more stuff when you think about it. Um, did you read some of what I have down here?
Edward: I was just glancing over it.
JD: Uh, what are some of the…what are some of the, uh, the products that you used over here to dip nylon in to stiffen it up? What did you use?
Edward: That green dip, plastic.
JD: What do they call it?
Edward: Plastic coat.
JD: Plastic coat? Is that what they call it?
Edward: Umhm. And you got Netcoat, that’s black, that’s just a regular tar.
JD: This is green [plastic coat].
Edward: Yeah. Well, you can get it in black too.
JD: Plastic coat? You can get it in black?
Edward: Yeah. I didn’t like the black, but you can get it in black.
JD: Or Netcoat.
Edward: Netcoat. Then coal tar.
JD: Netcoat was always black, right?
Edward: Yeah, it’s just tar, but it.. it wasn’t a pitch tar, you know, it wouldn’t get hard. It get hard when you put on your lines, but
JD: How would you buy that tar in the old days when you had to dip that line and everything?
Edward: By the drum.
JD: You bought it by the 55 gallon drum? So it came in a liquid?
Edward: Yeah, a big drum.
JD: And you would, uh, you would use it straight?
Edward: No, you’d mix it. Put gas, or coal oil, use mostly coal oil.
JD: Coal oil?
Edward: Yeah.
JD: And, and make a…
Edward: You just go…whoever had a tar vat…tar nets…always give you three or four gallons, whatever you want…
JD: Whatever they had…
Edward: Yeah. You didn’t buy it by the five gallon like you do now, it come in 55 gallon drums.
JD: But that was always coal tar, in the old days.
Edward: You
either had a pitch, or a regular…you get a pitch tar [it] was hard, hard. And a lot of times, well they’d mix the pitch
with the regular tar cause they didn’t want it too soft,
JD: That stuff hardens almost like glass isn’t it, when it hardens, that pitch?
Edward: Yeah. Well, that pitch that you use is just like that, when you heat it…it’ll get soft, but when it dries it’ll just flake off. It break off, it’s pitch, it’s hard hard, you know? Couldn’t use it like that.
JD: Um.
Edward: And you could use, uh, like I say, red lead.
JD: Yeah, we said that already.
Edward: Umhm.
JD: But, but, you don’t use that late
Edward: I never used red lead, I never did use red lead.
JD: But you used, uh, lately was Netcoat or this plastic?
Edward: Yeah,
I been using that Netcoat lately, I got out of the plastic because it freezes
your swivels up. Gets hard
JD: Yeah.
Edward: Before I put em on the line.
JD: The swivels you use now, what did yall go to when you stopped using the nails. What did you start using after that?
Edward: Brass swivels.
JD: You went right to brass? Is that what there was…?
Edward: Well, that’s all they had then. They didn’t have the nickel plated.
JD: Nickel plated?
Edward: And they come out later with the nickel plated swivel.
JD: So you went right to brass. Was it the barrel type, just like, like we use now? The barrel type?
Edward: Yeah, umhm. I never did like the twisted type. More or less got that barrel type and wires that twisted [the other kind of swivel
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