Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 42

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; Gale Daigle; Matthew Daigle

 

Continued from Chapter 41

JD:      Something kind of specialized that y’all did…y’all learned to do…was learning to bug [mayflies, willow bugs] in the main channel, in the Basin.  Uh, how did y’all come on to that, do you think?

Russell:         By watching the fish on top the water, so thick that you could almost walk on em, and trying to figure out how to catch em.  That’s, the first fish I ever caught [on the surface at night] was [using] just a regular dipnet, used in the boat to dip fish on the line with.  I was off of Belleview there, one night, and I was runnin a line and I look ahead and them blue cats was [all over].  I say “Maybe I could catch em?”.  Then I got the net and that’s it, every now and then I’d pick one up. 

JD:      You could pick one up?  Boy, you had to be quiet running the line, then, huh? 

 Russell:         Oh yeah.  Well, [I would] tie on the line and just sit there and wait for em to come to you.  Then, we tried to figure out how to make a net [that would] cut the water better.  So, first one I build was out of number 6 nylon, and I dipped it, but it still wasn’t working.  [it would] work but it tangle up too bad.

 JD:      Umhm.  You couldn’t get em out.

 Russell:         Then, when uh, we decided to build one out of monofilament.   And that worked.  I…I very seldom ever miss one…very seldom.  No, we first started…until you get the technique [so that] you learn how to dip em headfirst.  If you get im…if you get im this way…if he’s in the water like this and you hit im just behind the head, he’s gone come forwards.  Come forward every time.  So, when we first started that’s the way I was dippin em.  Make sure that he was kind of facin this way, to where I could…get that net under him. 

 JD:      So, when the net is…when the net is…when he made his jump he jump in the net?

 Russell:         In the net.  And it got to a point to where no matter where he was I could catch im.  You just learn the technique of twisting that net just right.  You’d uh, first…when you first start, you…you first think you want to get under im, but that’s not the technique, you want to as shallow as you can and still get under im.  If he’s that deep…the shallower you got that net, the faster you can… you can turn it.   And that’s what it took a while to learn.  Once you learn that, well…you take uh, anything under five pound I very seldom ever miss one.  If he’s in reach of my handle, I’m gone put him in the boat. 

 JD:      You caught a lot of fish like that?

 Russell:         I caught, one night alone, I had Gale…I was married to her, and my daughter Janet, she was about 12, I guess, or 13.  I had a 16-foot bateau, five foot wide.  They wanted to go with me.  I went way up the channel, I started layin bugs and when I got back to Goat Island, from the upper end of Goat Island to the lower end of Goat Island, I loaded that boat.  I mean loaded.  I couldn’t put another fish in it.  I couldn’t move it no more [with the net paddle], it was so heavy.  All blue cats like that.

 JD:      Four- or five-pound blue cats?

 Russell:         That happens, uh…I studied it a lil bit.  That happens once per a moon.  They won’t be wild, they’ll come up and they’ll be right on the surface.  You can make all the noise you want, you don’t bother em.  Once night per a month.  They’ll do that.

 JD:      Can you predict when that night’ll be, or you just have to…?

 Russell:         Uh, I got to a point where I could pretty well tell.  It’s, it’s the dark side of the moon.  It’s pitch black, and…the tide’s gotta be…work just right with the moon.  That’s the feeding period.  If that feeding period is right, certain time they feed, and, you get it about 9:00, 10:00 o’clock at night.  They’ll come up around that boat and they’ll go plumb crazy.  And you go back the next night and they’re just as wild and they was the night before [the night before they were caught so easily].

 JD:      And when they wild, you can’t hardly even get close to em.

 Russell:         When they wild you can catch some, but you can’t catch near as many.  That night I dipped, and I mean steady…all the way around the boat.  I raised a sweat.  I was soakin wet when I got to loading the boat out that night.  [laughs].  I had about 1600, 1700 pounds in the boat.  I quit because I was throwin em in the boat [and] they were fallin in the back with them.  They were sittin on a seat back there.  I got the big wellbox full, I had the lil wellbox full, and I had em that deep in the front.

 JD:      Where you were standing.

 Russell:         Where I was standing.  And uh, when they started jumping in the back with them, I quit. 

 JD:      What kind of rig do you have to have to do bugging like that?  What did y’all start off with when you first learned how?  How did y’all get to where…how did you go from…you say y’all started because you tried to catch em with a dipnet as they would drift past your boat when you were runnin lines and then you developed the net, but then there was more to it than that.  You had to have a light, you had to have a…

 Russell:         Yeah, well, what the first idea of the light was…they had a dredge was digging out there somewhere, and uh, suction dredge.  And he bright lights, was putting a lot of bugs [willow bugs, mayflies] on the water.  And them fish would come up behind that dredge in a streak.  So, we figured out we need a light to put the bugs on the water.  When you got the bugs on the water, the fish was gone come up.  So then, we went to usin a bulb, a 50 watt bulb.  But that’s good, if your bugs are low.  But some nights your bugs are high, then we come up with a sealed beam.  Point a sealed beam in the air with a 50 watt bulb under it.  That draw em down, but you gotta have that light right at the water to put em on the water.  ‘Cause that sealed beam will bring em here, but it won’t put em on the water.  So, that 50 watt bulb right under it…everything come down [is] goin on the water. 

 JD:      Yeah, but you figured out a way to keep that light from lighting you up so they wouldn’t see you?

 Russell:         Yeah, we put a board uh, to keep the light from blindin us we put…I use a board a square board, or a round board…I got a bug light in the shed.  I made one this year.  I made it out of the bottom of, uh…you know the lid on a five gallon can, plastic can?   White one?  That’s what I used.  A sealed beam and the bulb behind it, and that shields me.   And that white reflects.

 JD:      That’s not as much of a board as I would have thought.  That’s about the size of a cake, like that, or something…

 Russell:         The size of a five gallon can.  I just made that this year cause I wanted to go one night and try, to see what they had.  I just went one night this year.

 JD:      Did you…?

 Russell:         But I was too late.  When I went it was too late.

 JD:      I would like…if you go next year, next summer, I would sure like to go.  I would like try to take pictures of what it’s like, at night doin that.  So, if you go next year, if you don’t mind a passenger, I’d sure like to go with you. 

 Russell:         No problem.  Just sit down in the back and fight the bugs. 

 JD:      I know, I know. Believe me, I remember. I did it with y’all for a while, but, they’d get inside my glasses, in here, and they’d lay their eggs on my eyelids [laughs].  You know they lay their eggs on anything they touch, almost.  So, and a bug net, y’all figured out to put a paddle on one end of it, didn’t you?

 Russell:         Umhm.  I got a…a aluminum handle, with a paddle on one end.  I got it in the shed too.  It’s, uh…I ain’t built a bug net in, I don’t know, four or five years.  I still got the same one.  Monofilament, as long as you keep it in the shade, it’s last forever.  It uh, it get’s stiff…stiffer than what you want it, but it still works.

 JD:      It wouldn’t matter for a bug net, would it?  Even if it was stiff, it would work better, probly?

 Russell:         No.   It works pretty good.  I use 80 pound test monofilament.  ..  You gotta double knot it, every mash.

 JD:      You do, huh?  Because it slips?

 Russell:         Yeah. 

 JD:      And, y’all use headlights for that.  What do you do…what kind of headlight do you use for buggin? 

 Russell:         You can buy…or could…I don’t know if you still can…with a dimmer switch on it.   A switch right here, you can put it…you want a weak, weak, light up at the front, strong light in the back…so when you throw it on that fish, it won’t spook it.  Some nights you can have pretty bright, it won’t bother em, other nights you throw a light on em and pffft, they gone.

 JD:      Didn’t some people put mud on their headlights to dim em, if they didn’t have a dimmer switch on em? 

 Russell:         Uh, I’ve never used mud.  I guess it might have been tried but I use a 6-volt battry…I use a 6-volt battry and I make me a lead the right length.  You know, I move it from one cell to the other.  ..  Until I get, uh, what I want.  It come from 2-volt, 3-volt, 4-volt, or…

 JD:      Ohhh.  You use a 6-volt…you talking about a 6-volt car battery, the full sized, heavy battery?

 Russell:         Yeah.  You can do it with a 12-volt too, it’s the same thing.  You put on your positive end [the post, then put the clamp on the movable piece of lead strip that you put down in the battery], come up 2 volts, 3 volts, 4 volts, 6 volts…

 JD:      You just put a long piece of lead down in there and…and get what you want out of it.   Huh, I never heard of that before! [laughs]. 

 Russell:         I got one in my truck.

 JD:      You can actually just put…

 Russell:         I take a…you can’t buy no good 12-volt headlight bulbs, so I use 6-volt bulbs and I use a 12-volt battry.  And I put it on about 8 volts, that gives you a strong light.

 JD:      Well, you have to buy a special battery that you can still look inside the cells?

 Russell:         Yeah, or you can open em up.  Even those that’s . sealed.  You open em, pass a screw driver and it pops up.

 JD:      Oh, is that right?  I didn’t realize that.  Course some of em don’t even have those ports on the top of em anymore, I believe.

 Russell:         Yeah, they got some, I seen some like that.  But when I buy one for my boat, I always make sure I can open it. 

 JD:      You can open it, and you can vary the amount of, uh, voltage that you get.  I never heard of that before.   Where do you get that strip of lead that you use to stick down…?

 Russell:         Off a battry.  You take one of the posts of a old battry.  You pull that post out and you sit there with a hammer and you mash it until it’s the length you want.  Shape it like you want.  Just clamp on the end of it and drop it in [into the open hole in the battery].

 JD:      [laughs] That’s the kind of stuff that people don’t know about out there, that y’all figured out for yourselves, you see?  You asked me if I’m getting what we want?  Yeah, I’m getting just what we want.  Just with all that stuff. 

 JD:      Uh, the crib was a log raft?

Russell:         We used to call it a live car.  [confusion about the crib and the fish car]

JD:      A live car? OK.  Yall built those because you had to keep your fish alive between the fish…the fishboat visits.  Right?

 Russell:         Yes, that’s the reason why they had em.  They keep they fish in the wellbox.  A lot of em used to have a…you could bore a hole in the bottom of your boat, and you can make a plug with a notch.  When you run, the water drains out, and uh, when you stop, it fills back up, so when you go from one line to the other it takes the old water out and, get to the next line, put fresh water in. 

 JD:      So that’s how they changed the water, then, is uh…OK.  And I guess if you have…I heard of that plug before.  If you reverse that plug and turned it forward when you were runnin, it would really throw water in that box.

 Russell:         It would fill it way up, then when you stop it would go out.

 JD:      Go back down to the water level.  That was a good idea.  That was a good idea.  And then you probably had another plug, or the other end of that same plug, or something, where you could turn it around and it would plug it completely.

 Russell:         Yeah.  Flip it around.

 JD:      Yeah…yeah, that’s great.  So, the fishboxes were used, then, just for that.  And uh, how were they made?

 Russell:         Just a square box, uh, last one I built…when the hell did I build that?  Yeah, we was campin at Belleview I made one.  It was, uh, I think it was 4x4x about 4 foot deep.  About four foot square is what it was.  We was fishin right out the mouth of the canal  there.   You go run you lines, come back and throw em in the wellbox.  In the…in the fishcar, we talking about.

 JD:      Um, the last thing here on this list is floats.  Yall always had to have floats of some kind, to mark a line or to do something.  Starting from the oldest days, what did y’all use for floats?

 Russell:         Cypress knees.  Uh, I never did really use em, but I watched Dudley Duval when they was livin on the Boutte.  There were no plastic jars or…very few glass jars.  They’d go in the woods and find them lil cypress knees about that tall.

 JD:      About 12 inches tall.

 Russell:         Yeah.  They big at the butt.  Well, they’d cut em off and put em to dry.   And that makes a perfect float.  Put a lil notch at the top, tie a line on it.  Because in the summertime, when Sixmile Lake WAS Sixmile Lake, that’s the way you fish catfish.  You go out there and you put a row of line out.  You put a cork, a sinker, a cork, a sinker.  That line is fished like this here they, up and down in the summertime.  Fish was up high.  And they used a lot of that. 

 JD:      So, the line would go from shallow to deep and shallow to deep?  So you would fish the whole…[column of water].

 Russell:         When your tide was goin out good, you’d catch deep.  When your tide slack, your fish come up, you catch up high.

 JD:      So, were the corks floating, or…?  They were floating all the way to the surface?

 Russell:         Umhm.  Yeah, well, you put a long enough line on em to keep a boat, you know [line was deep enough for a boat to ride over without catching the line].  Them days there wasn’t nothing but lil boats.  That deep [two feet] a lil boat goin over.  So, that’s the way they used to fish Sixmile Lake and Grand Lake at one time.   I helped Dudley Duval and Bob Sauce cut some of them lil knees.  You go…hell, you can go and find one big cypress in the woods and cut 40 or 50 around one cypress tree.  It would take em about that tall, and take a saw…

 JD:      Saw em off at the bottom.  Would they dry em first before they’d use em?

 Russell:         Yeah. Bring em in and…you always do that ahead of time.  They might dry there a month, maybe two months.  When they good and dry, floats like a cork.  That’s what he used to use.

 JD:      Son of a gun! And he would put the notch on the small end, I guess.   And have the big end floatin up on the far end?

 Russell:         Yeah. 

 JD:      And then of course, now, everybody uses the same things – plastic jugs.

 Russell:         Plastic jars.  I go with all jars.  I use plenty of milk jars, and purex bottles when I fish in the lake [to] mark the end of the line, or tie the end of the line on.  Or, when I fish up the channel, I use a lot ‘cause you can’t tie to the bank up there.  You got to come out to the spoil bank, drive a stob, and put a…put a jug on it. 

 JD:      Why can’t you fish to the bank up there?

 Russell:         That bank will come out this way [shallow shelf] to about 18 feet…17 or 18 foot a water, and she’ll drop straight down, about 40 feet.   And if you put a line tied to the bank, when it comes off of there [the edge of the drop off], it hangs on you.  They got logs stickin off the edge of that bank. 

 JD:      I was telling somebody else, I saw a Corps of Engineers thing the other day.  I was somewhere in Baton Rouge, I was…was uh [drawing the profile of the channel and the shelves on either side], these are the trees on each end, each side, right here.  And the water’s comin across like that.  This is…I saw a cross section of the main channel of the Atchafalaya, like you’re talking about…and what they showed was this shelf like you talking about, starting at the bank and coming real shallow like that till you get…this is probably about where the buoys are [at the edge of the drop off].  And the same thing on this side, shallow shelf till you get to right here, and then you got this steep dropoff, from here to the channel bottom and this steep drop off from here to here, nothing but stumps and logs and trash and junk and everything.  I mean, they actually showed it, you know?

 Russell:         If you don’t know how to fish it, you can’t fish it.  You got to know how.  You gotta come off this shelf, you got to drive a stob, and you gotta put enough jugs to where that’s gone hold that up, and when you gone [put] line, you gotta come out far enough with your first sinker to where that line gone set here.

 JD:      So, you miss that shoulder?

 Russell:         To where it ain’t gone hit that shoulder.  If it hits that shoulder, you’ve had it.  You’ll never get it up.

 JD:      So, what you fish then…what you talking about fishing then, is just the channel bottom, right here?

 Russell:         Just the bottom.  Oh, you catch a few fish on that drop off too.  What you do when you get out here, you…you got this tight, it’s pullin further up, about 18 feet off of here, and when it comes down, it comes down on a angle like this ..  You will catch a few fish on the drop off, certain time of the year.  Not all the time.

 JD:      But if you fish too close to that drop off, you gonna catch those logs and everything else in there.

 Russell:         Lot of em. 

 JD:      You talking about driving the stob right there?   And then fishing a bunch of floats on it, like that, and then having the line tight.  Getting down there like so, and all the way back up…

 Russell:         Yeah.  Well, the channel up there, you can’t go all the way across.  Unless you put a anchor in the middle.  I usually come halfway, I drop a anchor, I fish just one half.  Yeah, you make it fish better.  A tight, tight line don’t fish.  So, you gotta…get it figured out to where you can, you fish it to get enough slack.

 JD:      So you drop an anchor here [in the middle of the channel].  And, and you fish just…in effect, just this piece of line.

 Russell:         It takes 120 hooks from the shoulder to the middle.

 JD:      From the shoulder…now, you would go ahead and put hooks down this shoulder line?

 Russell:         Yeah, oh yeah.  When your tide slack, your fish will come up to eat and stuff, and you’ll pick up a few, they’ll come up.  I caught fish come up to the jug already. 

 JD:      Your first anchor is way down here…

 Russell:         Way out, I go at least 30, 35 hooks out before I put a weight on it.  I put a good one, now, because I want it to go down at that point.  Put a four or five pound weight right there.

 JD:      And you put another…you always put a big anchor in the middle, whether you fishing a half…a half crossing or a…or a whole one.

 Russell:         Yeah.  But it’s a technique to fishing that channel, if you don’t know what you doin, you ain’t gone fish it.  You can put it, you might run it one time, but the next time you won’t.  I always noticed that.  I used to fish that channel and I didn’t put no corks way up high to hold it up.  I just let it drop down.  But when you pickin that line up this way, you pullin…that main body of that line is pullin slack this way, it’s comin up.  And it’s pullin under them logs.  So, you gotta be able to start far enough…you gotta be able to start…so when you start runnin it’s comin up ahead of you. 

 JD:      You gotta be able to start far enough away from the shoulder like this, so when you pickin up, it’s comin away from these logs, instead of pullin into em.

 Russell:         Yeah.  Now, you got a few out here too [in the more flat part of the channel bed], but they not bad.  Now and then I’ll hook one out there, and I got to cut it and fix it, not too often.  Once you come off that drop off, once you leave that drop off, you got just a few.

 JD:      Well, that’s what they said.  The said the bottom right here is pretty clean, all the way across.  That’s what they showed…except for these two big shoulders.   Why do you think  those shoulders are full of lots like that?

 Russell:         Jim, when I was, uh, roughnecking, we found cypress chips at 18,000 feet...in the Gulf out there.  So, once upon a time, that was the surface.

 JD:      OK. So, you talking about that that used to be…that used to be trees, then, forests, in there, in those places? 

 Russell:         Once upon a time, that was forest and it, uh…don’t ax me how, where or when…I watched a lot on TV and they…I’m learnin a lot more than what I used to, according to what they finding now.  But we found cypress chips at 18,000 feet.  Now, that’s a long ways down.  How they got down there? 

 JD:      I guess, like you said, they were there in the first place.  They were there growing as trees at one time out there.  We can take a break, if you want, or keep goin.  The next thing I want to talk to you about is fishin techniques.  We talked about all the tools, up here, but  I want to talk to you about fishin techniques…about how you set a bent line.  We just talked about cross lines somewhat.  Course the hardest cross lines to fish would be those channel cross lines.  The others would be a lot easier, I guess, than that, huh? 

 Russell:         The lake is different, the channel is different, the bay is different, and, I dunno how to explain it.

 JD:      Well, let’s start with one.  Let’s start with one.  When you grew up, you grew up in and around the lake, Grand Lake.  And, you learned to fish bent lines, I guess, in Grand Lake.  Now, tell me about how would you set a bent line when you first started fishin in…in Grand Lake.

 Russell:         Well, if the…if the water is down and uh, the tide not too strong, I put it tight.  I drive my stobs and I pull that line tight all the way to the other end.  If they got a good tide, I put so much slack according to the tide.  The stronger the tide get, the more trash they got, the more slack you got to put in it. 

JD:      Now, by tide, we talking about current?  You talking about current in the lake?

 Russell:         Yeah.  And uh, they got a place back here where I’m fishin right now…if I could fish it I’d catch 1000 pounds of big fish a day, but I can’t fish it.  The trash gets about that big on the line [a foot thick], at least, and when they dug that place out…when they dug it, for some reason they stood all the trees up on both sides…I’m talking about trees that big…

 JD:      Stood em up?  What you mean?

 Russell:         They threw em on the levee, and some of em were standin up.  And through the years, that washed out.  It’s probably 100 feet wider than what it was, or maybe 150 feet wider.  And all that stuff rolled in the middle.  It’s all settin in the middle of that bayou, and the barnacles are growin on it.  And when that trash, that tide goes out…you know bay tides, when it goes in it goes in and when it goes out I goes out, and it pulls it under them logs [the line] and the barnacles cut the line.   You can’t fish it.  Now, when there’s no trash, I can fish it.  When there’s no trash I can pull it real tight, and I put a sinker about ever ten hooks, to where, it’ll just sit there.   But if it goes one way or the other..that’s it, I can’t do nothing with it.   I got one, I got two in there, I been fighting, I been holdin em.  I been…when they break I fix em.  The other day, let’s see, I had uh, four blue cats on one that weighed about 80 pounds, the next one had three blue cats weighed about 75 pounds.   That’s on two lines, and I got room in there I could put 20 or 30 [lines].  But I can’t fight that much trash.  And uh, every year it’s getting worse, the water lilies…dead water lilies.  The bayou was blocked this year, [and a] big freeze put everything on the bottom.  And when that tide goes out it gets that big on the line. 

 JD:      Water lily trash?

 Russell:         Water lily trash.  Grass, roots…so, that’s a… I guess you could call it a technique, you just got to learn how to fish it.   Uh, I’m 61 years old and I’m still learning.  I figured out…I’m goin along, I put a line here, if it’s too bad in that spot…well, I take all the sinkers off and I move that pole down about ten feet…both sides.  If I look long enough, I might find a place where there might not be so many logs, I can fish it.  So far, I got two I can fish.

 JD:      You located those two?

 Russell:         Umhm.  They hang a lil bit, but I can get by with it.  But there’s other places…I put one out the other day, it hung six places.  And the bayou ain’t 200 feet wide.  [laughs]

 JD:      Is that a crossing, or a bent line you talking about?

 Russell:         Crossing, in a bayou.  Now, the bays easy fishing, that I love, to fish the bay. 

 JD:      Now, how does that work?  How do you set a bent line in the bay?

 Russell:         You just stretch out…I use 25 hooks to the span [the bent].  I drive a pole, I tie it that deep under the water, and I string it…I drive another pole, tie it that deep under the water…

 JD:      And…you use any bridles on it?

 Russell:         No. Tie it right to the pole. 

 JD:      You tie your main line right to the pole?   Is it deep enough for boats to cross…to go over it?

 Russell:         Some places they got…you can do it.  I can put em deep enough, other places you can’t.  Like they got a place at The Jaws, there, they didn’t bite this year, but two years ago they bit real good there.  Well, boats don’t go in there too much cause…where the Jaws come out at, there’s a bar built up this way, there’s a bar built up that way.  And I get in behind them bars.  And the water ain’t but about that deep [two feet].  Yeah, and uh, usually they bite good in there.  This year they didn’t come in there.

 JD:      So, in effect what you talking about is tight lines under water.

 Russell:         Yeah.  There’s another way we used to fish, we call a high line.  Make some long stageons, and put em out the water.  That’s illegal now. 

 JD:      You can’t do that now.  So, you actually fishin tight lines under water.  You couldn’t call that bent lines, then.

 Russell:         One pole to the other, I guess it’s a bent line.  I don’t know what else you call it.  Tight, and the tighter you pull, the better they fish.  If that line is slack, and he catch that bait, well he’s got nothing…no friction against him to get hooked. The tighter you pull that line, when he catch it, it pulls back at him.   So, gonna hook im.  I guess that’s a technique.

 JD:      Yeah, that’s right, that’s what it is.  Bent lines in the lake…when you learned to fish bent lines in the lake, you had a current most of the time.

 Russell:         Oh yeah.  Well, that’s the difference from the lake to the bay.  You got a current all the time and that holds that line, the same tension, about all the time.  The onlyest thing, when…the stronger the current get, more slack you put.  It eases the tension, it puts a big bow in it.  The bigger bow you got, the less tension you got on the line.  And uh, that’s the only difference in the lake. 

 JD:      So, it’s…you can adjust the line for tension in the lake, but it’s the trash that really stops you fishing in a strong, strong current.

 Russell:         Correct.  It’ll break it, or get to tight…it’ll get dangerous to run.  ..

 JD:      How about tight lines, when you first…when you fished…when you fished tight lines in the…I guess y’all used to fish tight lines in the woods a lot?  Didn’t you?

 Russell:         Aw yeah.

 JD:      How did you…how did you…how did you set a tight line?

 Russell:         Anywhere you could find a opening big enough to put one…15, 20 hooks, you know?  Long, or go from one tree to…I done seen me in the woods take off like this here and do this and put lines in the woods.

 JD:      Zigzag wherever.

 Russell:         Wherever I could pass, a put so it wouldn’t come up against another tree.  It’s just a good upcurrent or downcurrent, lengthways the current, in the woods it doesn’t make any difference. 

 JD:      And you fished tight lines…used to be able to fish tight lines in the bay, and you set those on poles?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Used to once upon a time you could.  But uh, there’s a few places they’re legal, but not here.  Grand Lake, up the Intracoastal, they’re legal, and Lake DesAllemands, they’re legal, but anywhere else, illegal.  Bush lines are illegal now.  You put a pole and tie a line on it?  Illegal. 

 JD:      How about tying it to a tree that’s already there? 

 Russell:         Well, you ain’t got no trees on the bay.  Out here?  I don’t think they would bother you out here.  In them woods. 

 JD:      We already talked about bugging.  How about bait techniques?  Uh, how do you…how do you build a shrimp bush? 

 Russell:         You just cut a bunch of lil myrtle wax limbs and you tie em together.  Put em all in a pile and tie em together. 

 JD:      And then what do you do with it? 

 Russell:         Well, the technique this time of the year [winter], you got to sink em.  You got to find you a steep bank somewhere with 8, 10, 12 feet of water.  Put a weight in it and it’ll go to the bottom. 

 JD:      Now this time of year, you talking about, in the winter?

 Russell:         Wintertime, when it’s cold.

 JD:      And the water’s clear?

 Russell:         Clear.  The shrimp won’t come up. 

 JD:      So, you always got to try to find your shrimp deep, then, in cold, clear water. 

 Russell:         Wintertime, yeah, you can find em deep.  Summertime, they’ll hide.  Use traps in the summertime, catch about all the bait you want. But in the wintertime, you can’t make em run [into a trap].  They won’t bait [come to].  They won’t run.  Summertime, when the water go all the way down, to where they not runnin anymore on the points, you move your traps out in deeper water and bait em with cheese.  Catch shrimp. 

 JD:      In the summertime.   When the water’s really warm.

 Russell:         Yeah, it works. 

 JD:      You, uh, did you ever fish the wooden shrimp traps?  The old boxes they used to make?

 Russell:         Yeah. 

 JD:      How would you fish those?

 Russell:         I used to have one when I lived on the Boutte over there.  It was 3x3x3.  Three foot deep.  And I… you never pick that box up and look at it, uh, you make it with some…the flues underneath were…you had four flues on it, about that far off the bottom.

 JD:      About six inches.

 Russell:         Yeah, about six inch off the bottom.  You’d get you two boards and you put em on a shape like this here, inwards.  And, the box is big enough, you just throw bait in it and you come there with your shrimp net and dip in em.

 JD:      You dip the box?

 Russell:         Yeah, you dip in the box.  In the box, in the box.  Get the bait you want.  Now there was another deal we caught shrimp with…

 JD:      It floated, Russell?  The box floated on the top?

 Russell:         We made a lil crib, like.  A lil crib, like, with two logs.  Slip it between them two logs and just let it stick out the water about that much.

 JD:      So, the box fished all the time, the top was open.

 Russell:         The top was open, and you put…put your bait in it. 

 JD:      Bait what?

 Russell:         Oil cake.  I even used gous, old rotten gous [gaspergou], you throw in…shrimp like that.  Put that in there and it draws em, in the summertime when they feedin.  Works good.  Another way we used to…I never did do it, but I seen them fellas, old fishermen on Boutte…build them lil box about 8 inches square, about a foot deep, and they’d hang that on a pole. With cracks in em, about that big where the shrimp can get it.

 JD:      About a ½ inch, ¾ inch.

 Russell:         And they’d go along with the shrimp net and dip the whole box.  ..  That way they easy to bait.  You just throw your bait in it.  You don’t have to tie no bait or nothing.

 JD:      So the box would take the place of a bush, it would give em a dark place to get inside, then, huh?  ..  And they worked pretty good?

 Russell:         I tell you who build the best shrimp box I ever seen, Arthur Sanders.  You know him, Arthur? ..  He build a good shrimp box. 

 JD:      And those shrimp boxes were about two feet by about 18 inches, they were rectangular, they…?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Different sizes, all depend what suited you.  If you just, uh, the ones Arthur build, I believe, they not deep.  They about that big and he sinks em on the bottom.

 JD:      About two feet by two feet, and he sinks em on the bottom.

 Russell:         About 10, 12 inches high. 

 JD:      And they have flues on all four sides?  Is that what you’re sayin, about four, five inches away…off the bottom…up the side?

 Russell:         Yeah.  ..  All the way around the box. .. 

 JD:      Those boxes used to have a certain smell, I don’t know why it was but they always…those boxes always smelled when you picked em up a certain way. 

 Russell:         Yeah, your sour smell. ..

 JD:      That’s the first time I ever heard about those lil boxes. 

 Russell:         Oh yeah.  Well, I’ve seen em…I’ve seen em used a lot.  ..  Hang on a pole, just like a bush. 

 JD:      And you’d bait that with cottonseed meal, or anything else. 

 Russell:         You’d make small cracks in it, just to where the shrimp could get in it.  And I’ve seen it work.  I’ve seen, uh, I seen em go there and dip that and catch three, four gallon of shrimp.  Dip 15 or 20 of em. 

 JD:      Boy, if they steal everything [lots of theft] though, wouldn’t they steal those boxes?

 Russell:         The way they do it now [amount of theft]?  You don’t want to put nuttin that can be seen. 

 JD:      What about wire shrimp traps?  When did y’all start usin those? 

 Russell:         Ummm.  I been usin those, lord, lord, uh, Jim I probly, I imagine since they made 40-inch wire.  How long that’s been, I don’t know.  But I been usin traps…I got 8 or 10 brand new ones in the shed I ain’t put in the water yet.  I got one in my boat right now, I picked up yesterday.

 JD:      You try to use shrimp traps out there in the bay?

 Russell:         I can use em certain places, I catch lush with em.

 JD:      What’s that?

 Russell:         You know what a cacahoe minnow is?   That’s it.  There’s certain places in the marsh, I want to bring to when I go back to Bayou Carlin.  You go in that marsh and you put, uh, put em in them ditches, and you catch some. 

 JD:      Just…you don’t bait em with anything? 

 Russell:         Uhuh.  When the tide falls, they come out of them lil ditches.  When the tide raise, they go back in [and] they go in the trap.

 JD:      That’s good bait?

 Russell:         One of the best, for the bay. 

 JD:      You fish em live?

 Russell:         I like to in that bayou I tell you where them big fish is at, when I can get some.  I put one live mullet on the other day, about that long [six inches long]. I had a 41 pound blue cat on it. 

 JD:      You catchin ALL big fish like that out there?

 Russell:         Since I went down there, I ain’t been down there but about two weeks and I ain’t been able to fish that much with the weather, but uh, I went put out 300 hooks.  I went back the next day I had 350 somethin pounds, 300 pounds of big fish.  [note that “down there” means at the mouth of Wax Lake outlet, or the mouth of the Baldwin Cut (Charenton Drainage Canal, not sure which).  Either way, it’s at the edge of the estuary system].  Then I went back the next day, I didn’t do much, I caught about 80 pounds.  And I baited again, I went back the next day I had about 250 pounds.  Then, I got to go back, uh, day before yesterday, I had 270 pounds.  But you can’t, like uh, like there won’t be nothing when I got back.  Them big fish don’t stay on a line, they pull off.  If you could bait today, and go back tomorrow, you catch big fish.  If you gotta wait two or three days…

 JD:      You don’t [catch as well]?

Russell:         No.  You catch a few of the smaller ones.  Well, there’s [a] reason for the big fish, nobody…nobody want to fish em?   So, they get thicker and thicker and thicker, the big fish. 

JD:      And then, like I said before, in a way that’s good for the catfish because there’s more and more breeding fish, then.  The big fish are gonna breed, there’s a lot more eggs.

Russell:         Yeah, but you know yourself, anything that get too thick, phases its own self out. ..  So that’s what’s gone happen to the catfish.

JD:      Umhm.  They get stunted, and everything else. 

Russell:         That’s like the deers.  For years they wouldn’t let em kill no does.  ..  They had less and less deers, less and less deers.  And what they did kill was all small.  ..  Now they startin to let kill some does, [there are some] big deers again, plenty of em.

JD:      There’s more for em to eat.  Uh, y’all used to fish all your shrimp bushes high, floating on the surface.  I understand, now, that you’re sayin that you can go 8 or 10 feet in the winter up against a steep bank, didn’t y’all also fish those bushes on lines?  Recently, y’all put em on some bent lines, cross lines, in deep water?

 Russell:         We tried that, uh, but uh…at least I tried it…put it that way, I tried it.  But I always find if you put em on a line, when you dippin one, you disturbin the next one.  And I quit that, I tried that in the bay.  Instead of drivin all them poles, when we fishin out there.  I put one big pole, go out 30, 40 feet and put another pole and run a heavy line over the top and tie em on there.  But when you dippin this one, you jerkin the other one.  And it messes [the other up].  Anything you gone shake you gone spook whatever’s in it.   So, we quit that.  Not we, I, did anyway. 

 JD:      You ever fish traps deep on line like that? 

 Russell:         Shrimp traps?

 JD:      Umhm.

 Russell:         Aw yeah.  I dropped one in the middle of the channel, uh, two years ago…uh, year before last, no last year.  Just a year ago.  The shrimps are way out, seven or eight feet of water when it’s hot, hot.  Get way out deep.

 JD:      When you can’t catch em against the bank?

 Russell:         Yeah, you can’t catch em against the bank…can’t catch em on the spoil bank [either], [only] in the middle of the channel.  Like the catfish, the hotter it get, the deeper they go.   Uh, last year your fish were right in the middle of the channel.  I mean right in the middle.  On the spoil bank you couldn’t catch a fish for medicine.  In the middle, all sizes.

 JD:      Uh, you ever dip willow roots for…for shrimp? 

 Russell:         [gestures yes]   In the wintertime.  They look for something thick to get in.

 JD:      You dip deep?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Gotta go...it used to be a lot of places you could dip like that, but as the bars are built up now you don’t have no more real steep banks.  I found a place above Cypress Island about four years ago…the best root [is] ash.  Fine root to it, and they pretty thick.  I found a cave-in on the sandbar, right above Cypress Island Pass, they had about…about 100 yards of it, I guess.  I could go there in the mornin…I got a 8-foot handle on my net, and I stick it all the way down and I rake them fine roots comin up. Three dips, I had all the shrimp I wanted.  I stayed there [went there to get shrimp] the whole winter, next year I go back, it wasn’t there no more.   Sanded up.  In the Big Chute, Blue Point Chute, you know what I’m talking about…the big chute down there that goes to Blue Point?  One year in there, on that left side, that bank was steep…three or four dips you had all the [shrimp you needed].

 JD:      Right there at the mouth, up at the front?

 Russell:         When you go in at the mouth, it makes a left hand turn.  . Right in that bend there, they got a steep, steep bank.  Lot of willow roots in there…

 JD:      And it’s just in the winter that that’s good?  [dipping roots?]

 Russell:         Yeah.  Summertime, it ain’t no good.

 JD:      Cast nets, as a bait catching technique.  We already talked about how you catch, how you catch mullet and stuff like that down below.  But what did y’all used to fish cast net for in the old days…?  What did y’all catch in the castnet?  How would you use it to catch bait?

 Russell:         Well, still catch shads and mullets and whatever.  Same thing.

 JD:      Did y’all catch salt water shad in the old days too?  Did they come up…?

 Russell:         Yeah, they always did have some shad come up this lake, uh…always have been.  When the water’s all the way down, they work their way up.  They were pretty thick out there this year. And uh, usually when we couldn’t get em there, we’d fish at night, before we ever started shrimpin, we’d go down to the bay.  Leave about 2:00 in the evening and go get our chest full, and come back and fish all night. 

 JD:      That was a long night, huh!

 Russell:         [I did] many of em like that.  Come in about daylight, ice your fish down, get to bed about 8:00 am.  2:00 you gone again. 

 JD:      That’s not…that’s not good. [laughs]

 Russell:         Did it a lot. 

 JD:      How about, uh…if you have something to say, don’t let me stop you, if you have something to say…you’re the one that’s talking, so…um, dipnet along the levee for lil crawfish?  Yall always did that?

 Russell:         Long as I can remember.  Usually sometime, by this time of the year, your water’s up, you can catch em.  I’d like to get some right now.  Try out there in that bay, but, uh, can’t get any.

 JD:      You can’t?  Why not?

 Russell:         No water, nowhere.

 JD:      Oh.  Water’s still too low?

 Russell:         [the crawfish] probably still in the ground, or they somewhere out where it’s deep, I guess.  Probly in the ground.  The ponds got plenty, but I can’t find any [wild ones].  That’s why I brought this shrimp trap, I tried in some of them ditches out there…I catch two or three but not enough to do anything with. 

 JD:      But that’s something y’all always did, was dip crawfish along the levee?

 Russell:         Always have, far as I can remember.

 JD:      In the spring…and what time of year is that good?  The crawfish?

 Russell:         Aw, it usually start about this time of the year.  When you shrimp…used to be when your…we didn’t sink no bushes or nothing…and you quit catchin your shrimp on top the water with your bushes and stuff, you couldn’t get no more [shrimp]…and you go to crawfish.  You use crawfish the rest of the year.  Crawfish is a different bait from shrimp.  Shrimp…crawfish catch bigger fish. Oh yeah, all the time.  Everywhere you go.  If you catchin a pound fish on shrimp, you put crawfish on you gone catch two and three pound fish.  It’s different.  For some reason or another, I don’t know what causes it, but it makes a difference. 

 JD:      What sort of uh, uh, what sort of size crawfish do you prefer? 

 Russell:         I like small crawfish, something like that. [inch and a half].  Yeah.  They get too big, you have to start bustin the head on em and that’s hard on the hands.

 JD:      You just break the head…is that what you do? 

 Russell:         Mash it. 

 JD:      So, you kill em, and make that…that…

 Russell:         Well, when they get big, the fish don’t like em anyway. 

 JD:      And I never saw you break the tail much on em…just fish with the tail?

 Russell:         No.  Don’t work.  You put that on a line, it gone stay right there.  .. 

 JD:      Dippin white eels.  How far back does that go?

 Russell:         When I was a boy, about 10 years old, I went with uh, with Albert Bailey.  He used to have a lugger boat. 

 JD:      Albert Bailey…you talking about…?

 Russell:         Old Man Albert, the Old Man.  Myon.

 JD:      Oh, Myon. 

 Russell:         We left there and went all the way to Lake Palourde to catch white eels, when I was about 10 years old.  So that’s…that’s, uh, 51 years ago.

 JD:      In a boat? 

 Russell:         He had a big lugger, with a motor in it.  We used to leave…used to go dip eels.  Eight or ten of em together, and go.

 JD:      Yall was living on uh…on uh, Myette Pt. at the time?

 Russell:         I don’t remember where we was livin, Jim.  I’d imagine we was at Myette Pt.  I’d imagine.  Either Myette Pt. or Williams, one or the other.

 JD:      And Myon had a lugger.  And y’all would get 8 or 10 of y’all and go all the way to Lake Palourde?

 Russell:         I just went to be goin, me, I just went with em.  I didn’t dip no eels.  Uh, the eels that…used to dip em at the Ramos, Ramos Bayou goes into Lake Palourde, uh, yeah, Lake Palourde.  And they used to…get a big norther, they’d come out of that bayou.  Damn white eels like that, big as your thumb [18 inches long]. 

 JD:      Um, what are the other places to catch white eels?  Bayou Ramos would be one,…

 Russell:         Ramos, Lake Fausse Pointe, Lake des Allemands, in the east there’s plenty eels.  Uh, Lake des Allemands, uh, shoots…

 JD:      How about the bottom of Lake Verret?  Would there be anything comin out of Lake Verret? 

 Russell:         Yeah.  Yeah.  They catch em up there. 

 JD:      And, uh, it’s always a lake with a bayou at the bottom of it?

 Russell:         Well, what happens…the lake gets rough, the water gets muddy, the eels get sick.  And they stay on top the water, tryin to get out of there.  That’s…that’s what makes em come up.  When it gets a big norther, it gets rough, it stirs that mud up and gets in their gills, and they want to get out.  OK.  But see, uh, that’s a salt water fish.  And we catch em in Cameron over there in the butterfly [shrimp nets] that big around.

 JD:      An inch thick, eh?  Two feet long?

 Russell:         Yeah, at least two feet.

 JD:      In the butterflys?  Yall catch em in big numbers sometimes?

 Russell:         Yeah, at Cameron they got plenty. 

 JD:      Yall ever try to save em for cut bait, freeze em and save em for cut bait?

 Russell:         By the time you bring em in…by the time you ice em and bring em in and freeze em you lost the slime…and once you lost the slime you can throw em away.  That’s what the fish bite on.  You can bait white eel today, and it’s gone stay on the line for a week, but you gone catch fish tonight and tomorrow, and that’s it.  You ain’t gone catch no more. You catch a few in Southwest Pass, few of them lil ones.

 JD:      Small ones in Southwest Pass too?

 Russell:         Yeah.  They got some in the Atchafalaya Bay, but it’s the place to catch em [that you don’t have].  At the right time if you go to Southwest Pass, you could dip a lot of eels, but you got five foot seas when you got a norther blowin…so you don’t want to dip eels there. 

 JD:      No, course not!  [laughs].  But that’s an old bait, though, you’re sayin.   It’s been used for a long time?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Years…far back as I can remember. 

 JD:      The…and it’s always been a good bait?

 Russell:         The best.  It’s a funny bait, though.  If you over here fishing, and you make a baitin with white eel, make two baitin with white eel and quit, cause that’s it.  The third run you ain’t gone catch nothin. 

 JD:      Why not?

 Russell:         I dunno.  It cleans the place out…it stays on the hook.  You got to wait about a week or ten days, go back and bait that line, you catch fish again.  But any fisherman [who] fishes with white eel [will] tell you that. 

 JD:      Some people think it’s because they catch all the fish there are [in that area].

 Russell:         That’s possible.  I thought about that too.

 JD:      It catches that many…fish?

 Russell:         Yeah, because the first bait I was fishin up the channel…I had, uh, I dunno, 12 half a crossins.  I was doin 100, 125 pounds a day.  The first norther over here, I caught 5 or 600 [eels].  My first run I had 500 pounds. 

 JD:      Where did you get your eels from?

 Russell:         Lake Fausse Pointe.   They ran [during] the first norther, and that was it.   I probly coulda caught 1000, 1500 that night, but I say “Well, I’ll come back later”, I caught 500 and quit. [laughs]  So, I got…I got five baitins, I [use] about 100 for baitin lines.

 JD:      You keep em alive?

 Russell:         Oh yeah.  One of them big ice chests with a lil agitator [weed] in there?  They’ll live for a month.

 JD:      You don’t have any right now, do you?  Not even frozen?  Somebody, I think Edward, has some frozen.  I want to get some from him.  Get a couple and bring em to a…a professor friend of mine at USL.  I want to learn what their life history is.  Because they obviously…when they in the lakes, here, they’re small.  When y’all catch em in the passes, they big.  So, something happens to em from the time they leave those lakes…

 Russell:         Well, it’s a spawning ground, is what it is Jim.

 JD:      In the lakes?

 Russell:         Yeah.  They come up in these shallow water lakes and they spawn, and that eel that’s leavin when the norhters start, that was spawned earlier in the lake.  That…that eel not even a year old yet. 

 JD:      Well, let me ask you, have you ever caught a big one in the lakes?  In, any of the freshwater lakes?  I’m talking about one that would have been the parents?

 Russell:         No.  Never seen one.  I’ve seen some nice ones, now.  I’ve seen some, you know, pretty big around.  18 inches…I seen some two foot long, 24 inches. 

 JD:      But still real skinny, huh?

 Russell:         Yeah. 

  Continued on Chapter 43