Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 40

DATE:                        January 7, 1996 

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATIONS:           At Russell Daigle’s house at 1036 Lee Charles St., Franklin, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

COOPERATORS:   Russell Daigle

JD:      Let me start off on here, Russell, hmm, let’s see…I need to talk about, about the families in, uh… your momma, of course, was Ida.  And, she was Ida Sauce, before she married your daddy, and your daddy was Jesse Daigle. 

Russell:         Correct.

 JD:      And, I have down here he was Myon’s half-brother, and his father…your daddy’s father was Homer Daigle.  That was your grandfather.  And your grandmother then, would have been, would have been Rosalie Mayon?

 Russell:         I never did really know what she was before she married.  I never did hear it said.  But I guess she was a Mayon.

 JD:      But your grandfather was Blaise Sauce. 

 Russell:         Yeah, on Momma’s side. 

 JD:      And your grandmother on your daddy’s side was Ernestine Daigle.  So, I got that straightened up.  Uh, let me get.  What’s your whole name Russell?

 Russell:         Russell Paul Daigle. 

 JD:      What was your birthday?

 Russell:         September the 20^th, 1934.

 JD:      And, your wife’s full name, right now?

 Russell:         Gale Ann Guillory. 

 JD:      You don’t happen to remember her birthday by any chance?  It’s ok if you don’t.  I just…most men don’t [laughs].  OK.  Now, this is your second wife, right?  OK, the children that you have, uh, you had children with your first wife?  OK, and what was her name?

 Russell:         Helen Anslem. 

 JD:      OK, now, the children with Helen Anslem…their names?

 Russell:         David Gary Daigle.   Janet Marie Daigle.  That’s the only two I had with her.

  JD:  OK, how about with Gale?

 Russell:         Paul Joseph Daigle, Louis James Daigle, Russell Mathew Daigle.  [Not sure of spelling of last one – RD said Rus Massews]

 JD:      Uh, one of these passed away lately?

 Russell:         Paul.  Just a lil over…a few days over a year ago.

 JD:      Are these folks…any of these children…I guess they are…any of em married?

 Russell:         Louis is married.

 JD:      OK, Louis is married, and what’s his wife’s name?

 Russell:         Ticia Morgan. 

 JD:      And do they have children?

 Russell:         Yeah, one boy. 

 JD:      What’s his name?

 Russell:         Uh, aw she, I played with him last night.  Can’t think…it don’t want to come to me right now.   I’ll get it in a minute. 

 JD:      Is he the only one who’s married?  Louis, is the only one who’s married?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Paul was married, till he died.

 JD:      How about David and Janet? 

 Russell:         David…they both married.

 JD:      OK, do you know David’s wife’s name? 

 Russell:         Uh, they separated right now…uh, can’t think of her name.

 JD:      And how about uh…can you think of Janet’s husband’s name?

 Russell:         Faulk, Steve Faulk. 

 JD:      Have they got any children that you know of?

 Russell:         No.

 JD:      So, you have only one grandchild?

 Russell:         No, I have two.  David have one. 

 JD:      Do you remember his name?

 Russell:         It’s her… boy I don’t see them kids enough, I can’t think of their names.  I’ll think of it as we go down the line. 

 JD:      Ok, that’s fine.  So, so you were born in 1934. 

 Russell:         I know Gale was born in 1950.   I think December the 5^th is her birthday.  Not positive, but I think that’s what it is. 

 JD: So, what I’ve got on here so far is, uh, your family all the way back to your great grandfather, I can go back to your great grandfather on your, on your momma’s side.  But only your grandfather on your daddy’s side.  I don’t have much information about Homer Daigle’s family yet.

 Russell:         If you want that information, I’ll tell you who’s got it all. You go down the family tree until there ain’t no more – Byron Daigle.  Byron had the whole family tree, the whole family history.  The reason why he’s got it, they got a bunch of land up there at uh, Fourmile Bayou and he got to trace all that all the way back.  Now, he could give you the family history back, probably, 200 years.  Funny EJ didn’t tell you that he had it.

 JD:      EJ might have told me that he had it, cause EJ did tell me he was working on a bunch of land…

 Russell:         We sat down at EJ’s one day, him and I and Byron.  He had the whole history. He has that whole history of the family tree back, I know 200, maybe 300 years.  Because we got a small fortune settin in Switzerland that we can’t touch and they never could get it all together.

 JD:      In Switzerland? 

 Russell:         A hell of a big fortune!  We’ll never get it, but uh, it was there.  It was, uh, settled between two families, the Daigles and the McKerns. 

 JD:      I never heard of the McKerns. 

 Russell:         Aw they…they a well off family…[that family hired lawyers to look into it]…if they couldn’t get it, no use for us to even try. 

 JD:      Oh. Well, who put it there in the first place, Russell? 

 Russell:         One of uh, grandpa’s great grandpa’s brothers.  Open a shipyard over there, and he went into the shipping line, and that’s where it originated from and it, it got so big and it stayed there so long that the country claimed it. 

 JD:      Uh, I’d like to talk if we could about uh…first of all I’d like to know one thing from you…just, just from what you remember.  The question occurred to me that I can’t figure out in my head.  When y’all: used to build…maybe you didn’t do it…maybe you can remember when they used to build the cypress barges for the campboats that people lived on.  That was some big barges…

 Russell:         Yeah, well I build…I’ve helped build, uh, one for sure.  I helped Burney Anslem build the last campboat the built…we built the barge.

 JD:      How did y’all: build a barge that big and work on…here’s my problem that I don’t understand…y’all: used those…those gunnels all one piece, if you could get em.  Big tall 24-inch to 30-inch gunnels, and one piece all the way down each side.  But you had to use planking for the bottom, didn’t you?  How did you work on the bottom of that big old thing?  Did you have it turned upside down?

 Russell:         Oh yeah, upside down.

 JD:      Well, tell me how y’all: built the thing.  I’m curious about how y’all: handled it to turn it over once the bottom was…was on it. 

 Russell:         Block and tackle and a big tree.  It’s no big deal.  Set it off from the side of a tree…you got a big tree, get your block and tackle and catch, like a bridle, you just pick up one side until she breaks over.  And then you take a block and tackle and you pull the…

 JD:      You pull the bottom out the other way?

 Russell:         Yeah.  You hold it with this block so it don’t fall too fast, and you pull it with the other one.

 JD:      Ok, so you purposely build it next to a big tree where you can use the block and tackle to get on it?

 Russell:         Yeah.  That’s the way they turned em over.

 JD:      Ok, so that’s the way you turned em over.  ‘Cause you see…I had to figure out in my head…you got those big old heavy gunnels and big old bottom on that barge…that barge was problem what?  16 feet wide? 

 Russell:         Uh, in that neighborhood, I think, 14, 16 feet.

 JD:      And 30 to 40 feet long?

 Russell:         30, 36 feet long.  In fact the last one I helped build…the gunnels was hewed out with ax.  The trees was split…big tree was split in the middle, and resplit and hewed out.  That last barge was built on a angle.  The bottom part of it…where the barge…the plankin went on was probably 10 inches wide, and it would come to the top about a 4 inch. 

 JD:      So, the gunnels tapered? You saying?

 Russell:         That particular one there was, that wasn’t cut by no sawmill.  That was hewed out with a ax. 

 JD:      They tapered from 10 inches wide at the bottom to 4 inches wide at the top?  Why was that?

 Russell:         It was more to nail on and the bottom would be stronger.  Instead of just one row of nails, you could put two, three rows of nails and…stronger.  And, timbers in the bottom, they had uh, two more rows of timbers in it…come from the headblock down and joined at the bottom, and that was uh, some barge…I seen some barge with 2X6 but that one there was 4X8s.  Two more rows in the bottom.  You know, quarter to the sides [?], and then the plank over that.

 JD:      All cypress?

 Russell:         All cypress.  Fact the last one we built we had the cypress sawed right here at John Comeaux, used to have a mill right here in Franklin.  We floated em out of the swamps and floated over here and had em sawed. 

 JD:      How did you split a big tree like that?

 Russell:         You had to bore it.  Oh, you mean for a sawmill?

 JD:      No, the way y’all: did it…

 Russell:         You take a auger and you’d bore it every so far…

 JD:      Like every six inches or…

 Russell:         Every 6 or 8 inches, and they you’d wedge it.

 JD:      How deep would your auger go?

 Russell:         Oh, we’d braze handles on em and you could go any depth you want.

 JD:      You really could?  You could go like two feet deep, 24 inches?

 Russell:         Oh yeah.

 JD:      Did you try to auger all the way through?

 Russell:         You had to, to split it.   Top to bottom.  If you didn’t, what would happen is you split on different angles, so you had to put your auger all the way through pretty close together so she’d split from one to the other. 

 JD:      Yeah, yeah.  Well, how did you make sure those augers went straight through that, uh, I mean you didn’t have much to play with I would think.  What if they came out crooked, or something?

 Russell:         Well, you’d allow enough when you were splittin, to where you could take your ax and, if it come out a couple inches one way or the other, you could straighten it up.   Once it was busted.

 JD:      But to come straight down, through a piece of wood…

 Russell:         You had to be careful.

 JD:      And that was all by hand, of course…I mean you…

 Russell:         Aw yeah, all by hand.

 JD:      That was a branch you had on top of that…on top of that auger?

 Russell:         Just a handle about that long.

 JD:      Oh, a handle, and you’d come straight around.  Oh, I see.  Yeah.

 Russell:         I seen two sets built.  I seen one, my old man built one, the campboat he had, he had built one.   I was real small, I was about four years old when he started it, and it probably took him a couple of years…

 JD:      Felix you talking about?  Blaise…?

 Russell:         No, Daddy, my daddy.   Jesse.  He made one, uh, right there on William’s Canal [Blaise's Canal] there.  When you go in William’s Canal, remember when we fishin crawfish?  You go in William’s Canal?  That pocket they had on the left there where we used to meet, right there?   Well, right on that levee there…he made, he made two gunnels. 

 JD:      I had no idea when we were fishing down there all that history took place on that land we were meeting on.  That’s where we changed our props and everything before we would come back in the evening, huh?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Right there.  That used to be a long, deep pocket right in there, and there was a high levee on each side.   But it all washed away. 

 JD:      That’s funny, you know, that that levee is gone, because it seem like the levees ought to of stayed there.  Everything else was building up…

 Russell:         It washed away.  Years of rain, I guess…no grass on it to amount to anything, and it just washed…

 JD:      So that’s how…that’s how they built those barges. 

 Russell:         In the olden days, until they got the sawmills started, then they’d get em sawed at the sawmill…four inches thick, and whatever length they wanted. 

 JD:      Could the sawmill cut something that big, to where it was…

 Russell:         The one they had right here, May Brothers…was right here…no, Kyle Taylor Mill, right here in Franklin.  Yeah, they could cut up to 60 feet.

 JD:      60 feet long?

 Russell:         60 feet long, and they could cut up to 5 or 6 foot wide.  They used band saws.  They had gang saws, what they called, they had spaced them saws so far apart and when a log went through, when it come out on the other end it was all in pieces. 

 JD:      And y’all: used to do that on half if you’d bring the lumber in…bring the logs in.

 Russell:         I never had none sawed at that mill.  That was practically before my time.  I helped tear that mill down when I was, uh, about…oh, about 20 years old.  Uh, Harold McHugh bought the old mill, and all the lumber, ‘cause the old man…old man Kyle Taylor himself, when he’d saw some big logs and he’d run into boards that wide, 30,40 feet long, overhead they’d go.  And he kept that. He must have had a 100,000 foot stacked there, and Harold McHugh bought that and built a house with it.   And I helped haul all that stuff out of that mill. 

 JD:      So, he’d keep the short boards, is that what he’d do?

 Russell:         No, it was all long, and wide.  The whole house is sealed inside with 48 inch boards.  That man took that and sent it to some mill somewhere, and had it polished, and he sealed the inside with it.

 JD:      So that was the…the prime lumber he was keeping, the best of it.

 Russell:         Everything that was prime, that he saw and he really liked.  He would stack it.

 JD:      Well, that was under the table, or…?

 Russell:         No, he owned the mill.   I guess we getting off the subject.

 JD:      No, that’s all right, all of this is…all of this is good.  All of it.  There’s nothing that you can say that, uh, that is not worthwhile hearing.  Because I might find a use for it later on, and I might not.  Um, to get back to the…to the fishing techniques that…that, uh, y’all: used, and then as your life has gone on from the time you were first remembered how to use…learned how to use stuff to right now.  Yall used a bunch of tools, different kinds of tools all the time, and if we could go through some of those, I would appreciate it…for you just to describe to me the tools y’all: used, for instance, y’all: fished crosslines, what kind of anchors do you remember using in the past?

 Russell:         Well, when I was uh, we didn’t even know what a stob pole was, or uh…we’d go make us a mall.  We’d find us a oak tree about that big [eight inches].  Cut a chunk about that long [10 inches].  We’d bore a hole with what they call a mall.  And we’d got cut poles, sharpen em, and we’d drive em.  Drive the poles in the lake.

 JD:      But how about if y’all: fished crossings in bayous and things like that, what did y’all: use to anchor the lines with?

 Russell:         Well, I always had access to regular iron anchors, me, since my time.  I remember the old man and them when they wanted to put a anchor in the Boutte for a crossing, you know?  It was too wide to put a anchor.  They’d go cut a live oak.  They’d cut a live oak, and you know how the limbs always face up.  Well, they trimmed the limbs on it about so long to where it would hook in the bottom and they’d tie a line and drop it and drag it until [it would catch on the bottom].

 JD:      They would actually make an anchor out of a live oak…the way the limbs would come back like an anchor…and the oak would sink?

 Russell:         Yeah, sink to the bottom, and then when it hit the bottom I guess it would hook on a snag, and stuff, and they’d make a anchor with that.

 JD:      And they’d drag it until it hooked?

 Russell:         Drag it until it hooked something.  That’s before they had access, you know, to iron. 

 JD:      Your daddy did that?

 Russell:         Yeah, I seen him do that.  And I also seen him build a box, small box [2 feet square] and fill it with dirt.  And use that for a anchor, that works real good.  Clay mud, something that wouldn’t wash, and drop it. 

 JD:      Son of a gun.  You see that’s the kind of stuff people don’t know anymore, but is good to put down on paper as how things got started.  Oaks and…I’ll be doggone.  And you always used iron of some kind.

 Russell:         Yeah, I was big enough; they always had iron to where I could scrap something up.  Or get some cement…old bags of cement that’s hardened and use that. 

 JD:      So, that worked OK too?

 Russell:         Oh yeah, that worked good.  Take a 80 pound bag of cement and tie a line around and drop it, it ain’t goin nowhere.

 JD:      Um, I suppose boats would be big, would be a big topic.  And of course boats would be one of the tools that everybody used to make a living with.  You had to have a boat.  And, what kind of boats did y’all: have?  If you can remember when you were a boy and then the stuff that your daddy used to use as boats to fish with?

 Russell:         Well, the first boat I owned was a four-horse Lockwood.  I was about 13 years old I guess. I went to work raisin nets for my uncle, and, his brother in law. 

 JD:      Your uncle would have been who?

 Russell:         Bob Sauce.

 JD:      Uh, Robert?  Tootsie?

 Russell:         Yeah.   I went to work for him.  I worked $5.00 a day, I’d raise nets from sunup to sundown…$5.00 a day, until I earned enough money to buy a four-horse Lockwood.  Then I stayed on a while longer and made enough money to buy me a bateau…a used bateau somebody had, to put the motor in. 

 JD:      Oh, so all you bought was the motor first of all, you held onto the motor for a while.

 Russell:         Yeah.  I had it a long time before I put it in a boat.

 JD:      You didn’t have a pirogue or anything else like that when you were growing up?

 Russell:         Oh, the old man had pirogues we used to play around in and a pull…pulling skiff, and uh…

 JD:      You had pulling skiffs too? [push skiffs]

 Russell:         Oh yeah.  When Momma started fishing…when the old man had stroke, I was real young then…first stroke…and that’s how I was fishing, fish with her in a pulling skiff. 

 JD:      Umhm.  Was that what some people called a pushboat?  Same thing?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Oars.

 JD:      Yeah, you stand up in it and you push and pull, huh?  It was pointed, a regular skiff.  So y’all: must not have fished then, like that, too far away from where y’all: had your campboat. 

 Russell:         No, we didn’t go too far.  We were living right at the mouth of where the lil canal comes out at Myette Pt. there, right at the end.  And uh, we’d go fish in the channel, and sometime we’d pull up to Bayou Grue…you know where Bayou Grue’s at?  We’d pull up there to catch perch and stuff under the water lilies.   That’s about as far as you’d go.  Now, they’d take…I remember when I was small…they’d take excursions from, uh,…there’s no way to get to Franklin unless you’d walk, and they’d leave Myette Pt. and he’d go down the channel and hit Yellow Bayou and come into Bayou Teche and come to Franklin.

 JD:      You could hit Bayou Teche from Yellow Bayou?

 Russell:         Yellow Bayou, before they built the levee.  Yellow Bayou used to come out at Grand Lake and come out in Bayou Teche.

 JD:      Ahhh.  So, you could get in Bayou Teche with a Lockwood or something like that and come up to Franklin.  Most people, it seems like, went down to Morgan City though.

 Russell:         Yah, well, from across the lake, when we was livin across the lake, that’s where everybody used to go, Morgan City.  It’s a, well, whenever they’d go to Morgan City they had kin people livin [there].  That was a two-day journey.  They’d leave in the morning, go over there and do their shoppin and stuff and sleep over, and come back the next day.

 JD:      Ahh.  Kind of like a…kind of like a lil vacation trip, or something like that?

 Russell:         Yeah.  It didn’t happen too often because you had the fishboats comin up there.  You had two that I can remember.  You had Allen, used to call Allen…he run a fishboat. And you had Pinkerman Mendoza, and they had another one.  I can’t think of it right now.

 JD:      Was there a fellow named Jew Robert?

 Russell:         Yeah, Jew Robert, that was one, that was him. 

 JD:      What was his last name?  I forget what his last name was.  Vuillemont! Wasn’t it Vuillemont, or something like that?  Jew Robert Vuillemont?

 Russell:         And Pinkerman Mendoza, I can remember his last name but Allen…I can’t pull his last name out for hell.  I was thinking about that the other day.

 JD:      Were you?  You think about those old days sometimes?

 Russell:         Oh yeah, I’d like to go back to them old days.  Move back out in the swamp.  Where it don’t take a fortune to live.

 JD:      Could you do without the things that you…?

 Russell:         You better behave!   You start thinking about the bad things, and put em up against the good ones and it’s…they don’t balance out.  The good ones…got more weight on the good side.

 JD:      The lack of electricity, the lack of transportation…I mean a car, not being close to grocery stores, or anything like that?

 Russell:         That wouldn’t bother me one bit.  I could move out the city and never…forget about it.  Easy.  It was so simple, life was so simple.  Now, everything is a hassle.

 JD:      Ok, so, boats, so you got a…when you first started…when you started to fish lines you had a bateau? 

 Russell:         Yeah, when I was big enough to fish on my own, I had a bateau, then I swapped it with the Aucoin boy.  He had a 7 ½ Wisconsin air-cooled in a skiff.  I wanted a skiff, he wanted a boat to fish nets with, ‘cause the Lockwood was a good motor to fish nets…back up and come ahead. 

 JD:      You had a reverse?  No, you reversed the timing on it didn’t you?

 Russell:         A timing reverse.  He wanted that and I swapped it for…he had a nice skiff with a air-cooled in it, and it used to run better than that Lockwood and I swapped him for that, and I used that for…for years.

 JD:      To fish lines Russell?

 Russell:         Yeah, to fish lines with.  And then, how long that lasted, I don’t remember.  But from there I bought a 10 horse Wizard.   Outboard.

 JD:      Outboard.  That was your first outboard?  10 horse Wizard.

 Russell:         First outboard.  10-horse Wizard.  Straight drive.

 JD:      How old were you, you think, when that…when you bought…?

 Russell:         …don’t know.  Probably, before I got married. Uh, I got married when I was 18.  I probably say around 16, when I bought that uh…

 JD:      When you bought that Mercury…that Wizard, I mean?  Did it run?  That Wizard?

 Russell:         Oh yeah.  That thing used to go, boy.  Light boat, it wasn’t good for a load, but it would run like hell.  Lil bitty wheel…straight drive.

 JD:      Lil two blade wheel?  Straight drive!  When you started you better be pointed in the right direction [laughs].

 Russell:         Oh yeah.  Wrap the rope [to start it].

 JD:      Pull the rope! The gas tank wrapped around the back end?  The back side, I think, sitting on top of the motor?

 Russell:         Yep. 

 JD:      Boy, boy.  I guess you ended up using those old motors for anchors in the channel too, wouldn’t you? 

 Russell:         Eventually, yeah.  I don’t remember whatever happened to it.  Probably swapped it in on another one.  But the next one I bought was a Mercury.

 JD:      How about,…I’m goin down the list here, of these tools, kind of alphabetically, like they come, so they really not…really not…they really not connected too much to each other.  But anything that you remember about anything, just…just talk about it because I don’t have any reason to stick with this [list].  The next thing I have on my…my, my list, here, is bridle line.  Uh, see how these are all tools? [showing him the page with the tools listed on it] These are all things y’all: used to fish lines with, to make a living.  I would just like to know your memories of…what did y’all: use for bridle line when you first started fishing?

 Russell:         Well, when I first started fishing and you wanted bridles, we’d buy that galvanized wire, that 16-gauge galvanized wire.  That make good bridle line.   It wouldn’t’ rot as fast…when we started fishing it was cotton line, there wasn’t no such thing as nylon.  And about every three weeks, in the summertime, you had to put out new line.

 JD:      Whether you tarred it or not?

 Russell:         Whether you tarred it or not, it lasted about three weeks and then it would go to breakin. 

 JD:      Could you save any part of the old line?  Even the swivels?

 Russell:         No.  All…all we’d do we’d cut…yeah, we’d cut the hooks and schwivels off and reuse them.

 JD:      So. the hooks sometimes lasted longer than…

 Russell:         Yeah, well, the old time hooks they made, they wasn’t stainless, but they used to last pretty good.  You could get uh, two, three months out of em.

 JD:      That was black hooks?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Black.  They had one that was, uh, the Kirby, and uh, can’t think what the other one was.  They still make a Kirby. 

 JD:      Wasn’t there something called the Yellow Tag?

 Russell:         Yellow Tag, that’s it, that was the black hook. 

 JD:      Um, so y’all: used 16-gauge galvanized wire.

 Russell:         I not too sure everybody used it, but I know I was.  I used it for a while, and uh, also when we fished Calumet Cut down…I was about 16 I guess, or 17, I was down there with Bob Sauce, and uh, that’s right after I got that first boat.  Want some cream Jim [getting coffee]?  Uh, we’d also use that 16-gauge galvanized wire to put across Calumet Cut.  The current was too strong, we couldn’t hold nothing.  Lines wouldn’t hold.

 JD:      Now wait, let me understand, you’d actually use the wire for your main line?

 Russell:         Yes sir, we’d tar it.

 JD:      You’d tar the 16-gauge wire?

 Russell:         Tar that wire.  Take a roll of it, stick it in the tar.  And uh, so the stageon wouldn’t slip when you tie the stageon on it.  And we fished Calumet Cut with 16-gauge galvanized wire. 

 JD:      How in the world did you tar galvanized wire?  In a coil?

 Russell:         Yeah.  In a coil.

 JD:      That must have been something to handle wire for a long distance like that, to put it out and everything, eh?

 Russell:         It wasn’t that bad, you stretch it out before you put the hooks on it.  You sit there with that coil in your hand and if it’s not messed up…

 JD:      If it’s not kinked or something, eh?

 Russell:         It’ll come right on…well, you had to be very careful, ‘cause if you got a kink, it broke.  So, I fished crossins with that…nylon come out, I was still pretty young when nylon come out.  I guess I probably was…I don’t know…maybe 18 or something like that.  I think it come out before then ‘cause…

 JD:      When you got married, was…was you fishin with nylon when you got married?

 Russell:         No, I was fishin cotton nets.  After I got married I moved on Bayou Boutte, and I started fishin hoopnets.  I’d fish hoopnets all the time.

 JD:      So, you did fish hoopnets a lot? 

 Russell:         Oh yeah, I had up to 150, 160 at the time. 

 JD:      More than lines?  You fished more hoopnets than hooks?

 Russell:         No, that only lasted for me…I messed with hoopnets til the thieves got too bad…to when you had to start hidin em, and then that’s when I gived it up.  I probably fished hoopnets about ten years.   From I was about 20 till about 30, I guess…fished hoopnets. 

 JD:      So, you started fishing lines when you were younger, first started.  Fished lines till you got started with hoopnets?

 Russell:         Yeah, I always fished lines, even when I was fishing hoopnets I had some lines out. The days I didn’t raise nets, well, I fish lines. 

 JD:      But, when y’all: didn’t have that…that uh, galvanized wire, what did you use for bridle line?

 Russell:         Uh, regular line.

 JD:      Just regular main line?

 Russell:         Regular main line.  You’d buy it a lil bigger so it would be a lil stronger. 

 JD:      And what was the…what was the size of the main line in that cotton, that y’all: used? 

 Russell:         It wasn’t no use to put nothing too big cause it wasn’t gone last anyway, so mostly 30 [.30].  You’d buy 48 for the bridle.

 JD:      And everything would go at the same time, bridles and everything probly, huh?  And you had to change the whole line every two to three weeks.

 Russell:         Yeah, well that’s why we were usin that galvanized wire as soon as…I don’t remember at what point we got it, but at the point we got it we went to the wire…you didn’t have to worry about changing the bridles anymore.

 JD:      Umhm.  And that would last a while?  That wire?

 Russell:         Yeah, that galvanized wire.  Them days, they were galvanized.  They’d probly last a year down there.

 JD:      No kidding!? 

 Russell:         Now, you can’t buy no more galvanized…galvanized coated, now.

 JD:      Yeah, yeah.  That’s the same thing with your momma’s swivels.  You used to be able to get those good, galvanized nails, I guess, and you can’t get em anymore. 

 Russell:         Yeah, they’d last uh…oh, you could get…when Momma first started makin em with the good nails you could get six, eight months out of em.  But, after a while, they got to the point to where the nails wasn’t any more good.  The wire would hold up, but the nail wouldn’t hold up. 

 JD:      Well, the galvanized would crack when you make that bend, huh? 

 Russell:         [motions yes] It would rust out.  The heads…well, mostly what happened to the nails, once the galvanize was gone, the heads would, uh, just wear off.  Before you know it, the heads was pullin through. 

 JD:      Let’s try to talk about these things while they’re still somewhat connected to each other, Russell.  The next thing I have on line here is bug lights, but let me go try to… we talked about line…we talked about line, and we talked about uh, the old…the cotton line.  Uh, when it switched from cotton to nylon, that must have been a huge change for the fishermen, huh?  You remember much about that?  Recall your memories about when you first heard about nylon, and how you got your first nylon and…

 Russell:         Well, the first nylon I ever put out…the sandbars [were] comin down Grand Lake, [they] were just below the end of Goat Island.  They were building up more and more every year.  When nylon came out, that’s where the end of the bar was.  And I remember buying some 18 [.18] nylon, white.  And I went on the end of that bar, and I put a row of line across the end of that bar, and man I caught fish!  Beautiful stuff, and that’s my first recollection of…of nylon.

 JD:      Now, .18, you say you bought .18 nylon.  You mean you used it as main line, or you used it as…?

 Russell:         Main line.

 JD:      And you still used the cotton stageons at that point?

 Russell:         Well, I don’t…I don’t remember.  But I imagine we put nylon on it, I imagine.  Because everybody kept telling me, I was a kid “Use smaller line, it cuts the trash better”. Use the smaller line, it cuts the trash better.  As I got older I found out that was bullshit [laughs].  It don’t. 

 JD:      You can see why they might think so, though.

 Russell:         It tear your hands up, that lil line.

 JD:      Cuts your hands up.

 Russell:         Yeah, now, all I fish now is 42 and 48 main line.  Something you can pull on.

 JD:      But that nylon stuff, when y’all: put that nylon out, and it lasted more than three weeks, without tarring it…Well, I guess y’all: did tar it, probly, up front, eh?

 Russell:         First one I put out was white.  Boy, I put a stageon on it, the stageon always slippin one way or the other.  Then we probably started tarrin it to…’cause I know I used to hank it.  We couldn’t buy tarred one.  I used to take it off the spool and hank it, you know, big hank and soak it in that coal tar.  The first…I think the first one I ever tarred, I burned it.  Too hot, then I learned you just got to melt it to where it’s warm, to tar it.

 JD:      Umhm.  You see, that’s the kind of stuff, right there, the kind of stuff you just said, that would tell people how it was when y’all: got used to doing things and made adjustments, and changes.   That’s good stuff.

 Russell:         Well, the miraculous thing about nylon when it came out was hoopnets.  ‘Cause cotton nets, every 14 days you had to pick em up. And tar em, if you wanted em to last.  They’d last a long-time [if] you pick em up every 14 days, but don’t go three weeks!  You do that about three times, you ain’t had no more nets!

 JD:      They rotted all out?

 Russell:         Nylon, you could, they get too dirty you pick em up and clean em and tar em.  But otherwise, nylon nets you [just] fish em.  Then, it got to where you still had to tar em at least twice, three times a year on account of the hoops.  We were usin wood hoops.   And then fiberglass came out, well, then that…you could fish em even longer.  But uh, that’s a [very] big help when nylon came out, was for the hoopnet fishermen.

 JD:      Well, I guess lines too, though, I mean it was a lot of trouble to change those lines every two to three weeks.

 Russell:         Oh yeah. A big help.  The big part about them hoopnets…that nylon, it was so much lighter.  A hoopnet, a cotton net, you keep tarrin and tarrin and tarrin…directly that thing get heavy!   You get in deep water; you got something to pull out of that water…that current catches it.  [laughs] I’ll never forget, the first 20…I didn’t build em, Bernie Anslem built em, and I was fishing em on half for him.  And we put em right in the middle of Bayou Boutte, right where the Fisher…right in the middle of the Fisher, where the Fisher meets the Boutte.  And I put 20 nets down that bayou, and I’d raise em every day!  I had a 16-foot bateau five foot wide, it wouldn’t carry the fish I would catch.   20 nets, I couldn’t raise em all!  I’d never raise em all in one day.  I’d raise in the morning when the tide was slack [because] you had 80 feet of water in there.  Well, all the way up to the lake, you had 80 feet of water.  And, I never…well, I’m not sure but I think I never got to the point where I could raise all 20 in one day.  Tide always would pick up, or the boat was loaded. 

 JD:      What kind of fish?

 Russell:         Goujons, blue cats, gous, great big buffaloes that long.  Every day you could raise your nets and they were [full].  They’d average better than 100 pounds per net every day.

 JD:      And you could fish…you could sell?

 Russell:         Them days, buffalo was worth 30 cents a pound, gous worth 30 cents, 40 cents a pound.  Catfish, they had a better price then than what they got now.  They’d always average say from 45 to 65 cents a pound.  The low point was about 45, the high point about 65 [cents a pound].  Earl Guillory had a fish dock right when you go down the river, instead of going toward the town, you turn and you go back up like you goin up to the Intracoastal, the Old Intracoastal goes up there?  He had a dock up here.  That’s where we used to go sell at.

 JD:      At Morgan City?  Just above Morgan City?

 Russell:         Just above Morgan City.  On the [?]ville side, above [?]ville area. 

 JD:      Y'all used to go sell there because you were at Bayou Boutte, which was close?

 Russell:         Yeah. 

 JD:      Y'all didn’t have to have a fishboat to pick your fish up there?

 Russell:         No.  When I was livin there we used to haul our own.  And, they all worked [the fishboats] on a 5 cents commission, so if you had uh, 2000 pounds of fish to haul in you’d save some money.  When we’d get through raisin nets…we’d get through raisin nets about three or four o’clock in the evening, clean up, jump in the boat and go bring em to town.  It wasn’t but a 30 minute ride one way, 30 minutes back.

 JD:      So, you didn’t even have to worry about keeping your fish alive?

 Russell:         No.  The onlyest fish we’d keep alive…if the price would drop, we had fish box, 20 feet long, 10 feet wide, 10 feet deep.

 JD:      What!!

 Russell:         We had it settin in a big crib in deep water.  We’d catch fish like that [big fish], in the fish box, in the fish box, in the fish box.

 JD:      Now what’s those dimensions again?  I’m really amazed at that. 

 Russell:         It was 20 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 10 feet deep.

 JD:      Built out of what? 

 Russell:         Cypress pews, split.  That’s what it [was] built out of. 

 JD:      I hear people talk about cypress pews a lot.  What was that?

 Russell:         You go find them hollow cypress, dry, hollow cypress, with wood about that thick on each side, boy, that split like glass, too.  You split em one way about that wide, and then you come back and you…

 JD:      So, you talking about stumps?  Or logs?

 Russell:         Logs. 

 JD:      Logs.  Old, downed logs.  And they’re hollow, so they didn’t get used by the…by the…lumber [mills].

 Russell:         No. They’d throw em [cut the down] and, when they were pullin timbers out of that swamp and they had a hollow ten, twelve foot long on the but end, they’d cut it off.  They’d take the sound part and leave the rest. 

 JD:      And then, the piece that was left, around the outside [of the] that wasn’t hollow…

 Russell:         Yeah.  Some of em just had a lil hollow in the middle...the wood was that thick on the inside.

 JD:      A foot thick all the way around. 

 Russell:         And you could get…probly each piece you’d take off, you could get six, seven pieces out of it…eight, ten inches wide.

 JD:      Eight or ten inches wide…as wide as whatever it was…the wood that was there [on the outside of the hollow center].  And as long as the piece was.  Would they split straight?

 Russell:         Some trees split perfect, other one would have a twist to it.  You find one with a twist, well, you abandon it.  You look till you find one that would split straight.

 JD:      Well, I can imagine!!  Something that big, how would you get em out?

 Russell:         Dip em.  Big dipnets we made, specially for…

 JD:      But, that had to be something!  How would you get a 20 or 30 or 40 pound goujon out of that thing in a…

 Russell:         [We’d] get em, though.  We’d fill that fish car up when the price was down, and that’s how we’d get the price up.  That man needed fish, and he knew we had the fish.  So, this is what we want for em.  Or they stay in the fish car.

 JD:      Where was that, where was that y’all: built that?

 Russell:         Right on Bayou Boutte. 

 JD:      And how old were you when that was goin on?

 Russell:         I got married [at] 18, and I moved down there.  And I guess I [was] probly 19, 18, 19 or 20, somewhere in that there year range.

 JD:      And…and, were you the only one of your family down there? 

 Russell:         Yeah.  My family…I moved down with, uh, her family [wife’s] when, uh…

 JD:      Oh, so her family was from Boutte?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Bernie Anslem, and, that was his daughter.

 JD:      Your family was still on Blaise's Canal, probably?

 Russell:         No, my family was here at Myette Pt. then.  They had done moved off the campboats, and had pulled the campboats over the levee and were living behind the levee then. 

 JD:      Oh, they had…they had…so, you didn’t live behind the levee with the rest of em when the moved over, you stayed on campboats?

 Russell:         Uh, I moved there with Momma and them when they moved…and then I went spend…like I told you…when I bought that motor I spent some time on the Boutte with Bob Sauce, he was living on the Boutte.  Then I come back for a few years, and uh, stayed there [Myette Pt.]. Then I got married, I moved…no I didn’t either…I left from…I left there when I was 14 years old, I went to Texas…

 JD:      From there?  From where?

 Russell:         Myette Pt.  I was 14 years old.  I stayed in Texas for three years.  Fourteen, fif…seventeen.  I come back when I was 17.   I stayed in Texas three years, and I probably…somewhere between 17 and 18 I got married, moved to Bayou Boutte.

 JD:      What did you do in Texas?

 Russell:         I was shrimpin.   Yeah.  We opened Texas up in 19…I think it was 1952 if I’m not mistaken, I don’t remember the year.  But Texas had never been shrimped before.  It was virgin country.  So, we went down there.

 JD:      You had some kin people with a shrimp boat?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Uh, my uncle was runnin a boat for the Castaglia [???] boys, out of Patterson, and they opened a coop down there, and we went down and worked the Texas coast. 

 JD:      I see, I see.  All right.  Ok. So, we talked about line…we talked about line preservative, um, the preservative y’all: used to use for cotton was always tar?

 Russell:         Coal tar was about the best.

 JD:      What other things did y’all: have?

 Russell:         They had what they call a green dip, but it wasn’t no good.

 JD:      Even then?  For cotton?

 Russell:         A green dip, but it…in fact, I got some in a can out there.  I don’t know where it come from…he gimme that a while back.  It’s probably 30 years old, probly been sittin there.  He found a can and he give it to me the other day.

 JD:      Is that that old copper based, uh, preservative?

 Russell:         When it first come out it was copper based preservative.  But it was…it wasn’t…we used to use that for stageon.  It would take a week or ten days before the fish would even bite on it.  The smell, no good.  Oh, it was horrible, horrible smell! 

 JD:      What do you use now to dip your lines in? 

 Russell:         We use plastic dip, now.  That’s what I use anyway.  I buy the main line already tarred.

 JD:      You do?   Black line, in other words.  You buy black line already.

 Russell:         Yeah.  It’s tar dipped.  And, I fix my stageon green, you know…white.  And then, after everything fixed, I dip em in plastic dip.  [white line and then dipped in green plastic].

 JD:      While we talking about line, let’s talk about stageons, then. Uh, when you first started fishin lines as a boy, what did y’all: do about stageons? 

 Russell:         Well, we used regular cotton stageons, when I was a boy, probly about 18 I guess, what it was.  Not positive, but thinking back and looking at it in my mind, it looked like about 18 [years old]. 

 JD:      How about… did y’all: use swivels when you first started?

 Russell:         Oh yeah.  Always.  In the current you always had to have schwivels…without, you couldn’t hold no fish.  You could make a homemade schwivel.  The first one that come out was just one wire, bent with a eye, and you go down and bend it this was…was just a single schwivel.  And Momma started makin em double.

 JD:      Did she invent that?

 Russell:         She invented it.

 JD:      She did?  She invented bending that top eye over to come and overlap the bottom one?

 Russell:         Yeah.

 JD:      That was really something, that’s a big improvement in the design of that thing.

 Russell:         Yeah, well, it would hang straighter.  It would turn better cause it was more uniform.  The eye would hang straight down.  That single one would pull…it was always cocked…to one side or the other.  Big improvement.  Lil harder to make, but…

 JD:      Now, y’all: didn’t only fish current lines, y’all: fished drop lines, bushlines.  Yall fished crossings, I guess, in slack water and things like that.  Did y’all: always use swivels, even on the…the bushlines?

 Russell:         The only place I didn’t use schwivels was bushlines in the woods.  Tie it to a cypress limb and hang it.  I didn’t use no schwivels then.  It wasn’t necessary, there wasn’t enough current for that fish to sit there and spin.  Even you can go in a dead water place and put tight lines out, and your eel cats will twist off.  They’ll twist that stageon one way until they twist plumb off. 

 JD:      They will, huh?  So, you have to use a swivel even on a tight line. 

 Russell:         Yeah.  Even on a tight line.  Well, I guess that bushline is so long, it’s what makes the difference.  Too much for em to twist up.  And if he did twist, all he was gone do is pull hisself out the water lil bit. 

 JD:      Which happened I guess sometimes, huh?

 Russell:         Yeah, oh yeah. 

 JD:      That’s when those cats [bobcats] and those owls would get interested, when they could see those fish.  Ever see any, uh, bobcats, or uh, panthers or anything like that in the Basin? 

 Russell:         Aw yeah.  I saw a bobcat and I saw a big black panther one night, right at…across from Belleview [canal].   About 8 feet long.   I’ll never for get that.  That ain’t been that damn many years ago.  Uh, let’s see.  When the last year I fished at night?  That’s before we really started shrimpin. 

 JD:      That’s when I was with you?  About 1973, 74? 

 Russell:         Somewheres along that line there.  I used to have row of shrimp bushes right across from Belleview Canal.  Right on that bar, right there.  It was a good spot.

 JD:      On the sandbar across from Belleview Canal?

 Russell:         On the sandbar side.  I went there one night to dip them bushes.  I looked…just comin to my bushes, I looked and I shut it down [the motor].  Pair of eyes lookin at me in the briars.  Bright, bright, bright.  I say “What in the hell is that?”  So, I stopped, and I got in front [of the boat] with the shrimp net paddling to my bush.   As I come to the bank, he come out.  He come out to the edge.  I took one look at it and I backed off.   It was a…he was coal black, at least 8 feet long.  Tail to nose, it was a big one.  He had a low growl to him.  I say Lord, Lord.  So, I played around a good while.  And finally [the cat went back into the bushes].

 Continued on Chapter 41