Atchafalaya Basin People: 06/11/26

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

Continued from Chapter 40

JD: Bobcats. You saw a lot of bobcats?

RD: I saw…the most I ever saw was right there on Goat Island. I was on a deer stand there one day, and uh, I saw at least three of em that one day. And they was running ahead of them dogs, I guess. Never did get a shot at either one of em. One of em was a big one, the other…the other two as about medium. The big one I saw weighed at least 40 pounds. You know, lookin at him I figured about 40 pounds.

JD: That panther’s the only one you ever saw though?

Russell: The onlyest one I’ve ever seen.

JD: Isn’t that interesting, because all that time you spent around that swamp when you were young…when there was more wild stuff back then. You know something interesting, Russell, I didn’t realize? All along, I though Goat Island was a sandbar island, and Goat Island was there when Grand Lake was wide open.

Russell: If, uh, the Millets would’a used their head and paid the tax on that thing they’d own it right now. But the old man, his grandfather had a camp right there…lived on that island for about 30, 40 years.

JD: On Goat Island?

Russell: On Goat Island. I remember where the camp was at. I used to go it when I was a kid. And they’d own the island now if he’d a just filed a claim on it when…

JD: As a squatter, like?

Russell: Umhm.

JD: I didn’t realize that. I thought it was a sandbar island, but uh, I’ve got a map of 1863 that shows Goat Island sittin right off of Myette Pt.

Russell: Yeah, that was dug through that point, right there. That short channel was dug through there.

JD: Well, it was there in 1863…the channel was, but maybe it was deepened.

Russell: Yeah, it was dug through…you see the big channel goin up never used to be there. They had what they called the San Diego Channel, used to go up this side the lake. That was part of it [this is the Cut between Goat Island and the mainland at Myette Pt.

JD: Went up this side the lake?? You mean…?

Russell: Yeah. It used to go all the way up to Butte La Rose.

JD: It went up…it went up, you say, on this side of the Goat Island? The channel went up this side of Goat Island?

Russell: Yeah. On this side the lake used to go up. See that channel, used to go right through Buffalo Cove, passed right through...passed to the left of Buffalo Cove and go all the way up.

JD: So, you would have had Lake Fausse Pointe on your left, and uh, and Buffalo Cove on your right, and go up that way. Hmm.

Russell: That’s the way you used to have to go up, cause that main channel…that wasn’t there, that was dug…the Atchafalaya River, it’s not a river, that was dug. It was dug all the way up to Lake Chicot. From Lake Chicot goin up it was natural. What the call Whiskey Bay Pilot Channel, used to pass through there.

JD: [ask to turn fan on] So, we talked about swivels and stageons. And you used stageons back then. All of y’all used stageons…I mean all of y’all used swivels on your…on your stageons…?

Russell: Far as I can remember. Say like the fella, I’m only 61 years old.

JD: But you remember stuff your daddy did too. And that was…that’s important. Your daddy, and maybe even your grandfather. Did you know your grandfather?

Russell: Oh…Old Man, they called him? Homer Daigle. My other grandpa died when I was a year old…Blaise.

JD: So, you never knew Blaise, then?

Russell: I didn’t know him.

JD: But you knew Homer Daigle? And just for the sake of it…Homer Daigle was a fisherman too?

Russell: Yeah. Fisherman, trapper I believe. I’m not too sure about the trapping. I think he was.

JD: Um. Let’s talk about nets. There’s all kinds of different nets that y’all used. Um, how about…what were cast nets like in the old days? Did y’all use cast nets when you first started fishing?

Russell: Aw yeah. That was all hand knitted, them cast nets in the old days.

JD: Cotton, too?

Russell: Cotton.

JD: Were they dipped? In tar?

Russell: You had to dip em with something, cause uh, in clear water white net wouldn’t work. They’d see it comin. You had to put some kind of stain on it. Like a trammel net, even when they come out…it wasn’t, uh, I can’t think, uh, what in the hell they were made out of. It didn’t really rot, but you had to dope em. We used to use a oak stain, what we called a oak stain to dye em with. You would take the inner bark of a oak and you boil it and it makes a stain. Black lookin stain. Yeah, I used that on cast nets, and, different stuff.

JD: Oh yeah? And it was mainly to color it…

RD: Mainly to color it.

JD: I guess if you tarred it, it would stick together and wouldn’t open real well, would it? Did you ever make any cast nets yourself?

Russell: I never knitted one. I’ve hung quite a few. Momma used to knit em…knit em for us, and I’d hang em.

JD: Where did y’all get the…the…what did y’all use for that top ring on the top, when you gather the top together?

Russell: I would try to find a…a bull horn…or a cow horn, and you’d cut a section and notch it. Bore some holes in it…or, I’ve used a rubber hose.

JD: You’d draw the net around the rubber hose?

Russell: Yeah. You’d notch it, and then bore it so far apart, and you lay so many mashes go through one, come back out again, lay so many mashes, go through the other one, until you got em all.

JD: Cinch em up around there? So. you didn’t just tie it around a notch, you actually ran it through holes, in it?

Russell: Yeah.

JD: OK, because right now the way they make em is they just tie it around the notch. Those brass rings? They just draw tight around that brass ring, I guess, now.

Russell: I just put a new one in my boat there, yesterday…day before yesterday, I put a new one.

JD: Monofilament?

RD: Monofilament don’t last that long.

JD: It doesn’t?!

Russell: Uhuh. That sun must burn em, or something, keep em in a boat. That…that was a new one when I started the year, this year. And I just put a…I had to put a new one in my boat.

JD: What kind of net you usin?

Russell: Monofilament.

JD: Five foot?

Russell: Yeah.

JD: What you catchin with it for bait?

Russell: Shad. Mullets.

JD: You fishing with that out there in the…[bay]

Russell: Shad, mullet, whatever I can get. But mostly right now what you can get is shads

JD: Shrimp are not good right now?

Russell: If you can get em, they’d be good. In the bay you don’t get any, in the Basin I can get all I want, if I’d be in the Basin, but it’s uh, the days are too short right now to run out there and catch your baits and then run back over here and bait lines. You got to fish with what you got where you at.

JD: And you using the cast net to catch cut bait? You using the shad whole or just cutting big…big shads?

Russell: I’m usin both. I catch, uh…some days I go in the bayou there, and I catch them young shads. Well, they pretty good. And other days all I can find is big ones so I cut em. Whatever…whatever I get.

JD: OK, another kind of net that y’all used all the time is what I’m callin a…uh, a dipnet. Yeah, a dipnet for uh, for crawfish and everything along the levee. Was there a difference in the dipnet that you used to…to catch baby crawfish, or something?

Russell: Uh, it takes a stronger rim, and it takes a smaller mash, for crawfish, than it does for shrimps. Cause, crawfish, you want small crawfish to bait with. Of course, I always used a small mash net, myself, when I can find em. Momma knitted me a small mash that I got on my rim there, now. And I like it. I can use it for both because I got it reinforced. Where you put em on a handle, if you don’t reinforce that steel, after you dip crawfish a while, it bend back and forth, it breaks.

JD: Now how do you reinforce that steel?

Russell: I take another piece of steel, come on the outside of it, shape it like the rim this way, and then I …down the handle, and braze it on the outside the other one. Both sides.

JD: So, you braze an extra piece on the outside [where the steel bends away from the handle]…How do you build a…starting from scratch, now, let’s say we gone talk about a…let’s say a dipnet for crawfish. Which would be about the same way to build it as a shrimp dipnet for bushes. But how do you…would you rather talk about building a net to dip bushes or a net to rake crawfish?

Russell: Well, I use the same one for both. Well, first you got to have some good steel. Like uh, we had to buy, me and EJ and uh Pete and Joseph bought 500 pounds, oh, some years back, I guess. Seven, eight years ago, so we’d have the right kind of steel to build it with. And I still got some, in the attic. I keep it in the attic.

JD: Is that net steel? Net rim steel?

Russell: Yeah, but it’s 3/8 steel. Regular net steel is quarter. It’s too weak to build a shrimp net. And that 3/8, you got to have a lot of heat to bend the points right, to make it go in the handle and make that right turn. We tried to find…you know, buy... used to could, once upon a time you could buy that steel just individually, lil bit at the time, but now they want, we had to get order [for] 500 pounds.

JD: It was all in a big coil?

Russell: A big coil. That’s the onlyest way we could get it. So, we got together four of us and we bought the whole thing. Then we divided between the four of us. I think it cost us something like 90 [?] cents a pound.

JD: That’s not too bad when you look at it by the rim, you know, the rim wouldn’t cost you that much.

Russell: But, if you look at it another way, you buy that much, you’ll come out in the hole. ‘Cause everybody want a rim. [laughs] Nobody pays. I probly done gived away 20 rims off the roll. What I got left, they can’t get to, cause I got enough left for four or five more rim, I probly won’t live that long. But at least I know I got it.

JD: So you, uh, you take this steel and you bend it. You bend it how? To…

Russell: Well, you gotta have a…the steel we got now you got to have a torch, or a doggone good crawfish burner, where you can get a lot of heat. ‘Cause it’s got to be red, red hot to get it…if you don’t it’s gone break on you. It’s gotta…it’s gotta shrink on the side you bendin, as well as what it’s stretchin on the other side. So, it’s gotta be hot. And once you bend it, the way I do it on my handle, I notch mine in on the handle. I notch each side the handle to where it will go in. And once it’s on there, I put about two staple on each side, and I find me some kind of a wire…like a 16 gauge galvanized wire…and I’ll wrap it all the way down. Make sure it stay on.

JD: So, do you use wire? Instead of nylon? To wrap it, then? Some people use nylon.

Russell: If I got time, and uh, I’ll put wire on it. If I’m in a hurry, I got ahead and put nylon. When that go, then I’ll go and put some wire on it, whatever. Nylon work good cause it shrinks when it get wet. So, you can wrap it with a green nylon and, uh, it works real good. It’ll tighten it, boy, look, it’ll pull in that handle.

JD: We didn’t talk about the handle.

Russell: I don’t like a cypress handle cause it splinters and it don’t last long. The pine is the best. Pine. Get a good piece of 2x2 pine, that’s uh, got no knots in it, and that...I took one off of that handle, that net, last year, I’d been havin on that net about 15 years. Pine handle. I put a cypress one on it last year and it’s almost wore in half already. Cypress, just they wear too fast.

JD: Where is “wear”?

Russell: Where you rub it against the boat. Back and forth. It’s not…what’s gone happen is a lil bit wear, then it start splinterin. You go look at mine now, I got it taped, cause it was splinterin too bad. I didn’t want to put that on there, but Roy Millet had made one and he give it to me. And mine was fixin to break, so I just put it on there. But I like a pine handle.

JD: Now, how about goin back as far as you can remember? How did they make shrimp…shrimp nets back in the old days, before they had crawfish burners, and stuff like that?

Russell: I guess they’d build a fire, up on the bank, and get the ashes good and hot and like, bend it.

JD: What do you think they used for steel?

Russell: I dunno. I don’t remember. Oh yeah. I dunno…there wasn’t no such thing as net hoop steel. Remember the old springs they used to make for the beds? The top…that one…the big one at the top, that all the springs are tied the thing together …?

JD: Around [the top of the set of springs], yeah, yeah.

Russell: I remember the old man makin some out of that.

JD: Out of bed steel? And that was the box, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that what went around the edges.

Russell: Yeah. Went around the edges. But it was just…it was all steel, there wasn’t no boxin or nuttin on it. Just all steel. And I remember him makin a net out of one of those.

JD: They had to make it out of something. I mean, they all had nets, right? They dipped shrimp and stuff like that, didn’t they?

Russell: I know for sure I seen him make one out of that. Now, whether…what the rest of the people used…I imagine probly the same thing. They’d find a old bed spring somebody threw away, or something…They had two, one around the top, and one around the bottom part of it.

JD: Well, now, that brings to mind – did they dip shrimp in those days, with bushes?

Russell: Oh yeah.

JD: They did? Even in the old, old times? They dipped shrimp bushes?

Russell: Uh, when I was a kid, they dipped they perch too. They’d go under them water lilies and…at night. Dip perch, and also dip lil crawfish. I seen lil crawfish, right in the Hartman, when I was a kid we was livin over there by Lil Blue Point Canal. The old man used to go back there and dip his…catch a bunch of water lilies, throw the lilies out and get a hand full of crawfish out of there.

JD: So, they’d do that instead of dippin on the edge of the levee? Or in shallow water?

Russell: Well, they had no levees over there on the Hartman. Everything was under water.

JD: What’s the Hartman, you talking about? What’s that?

Russell: That’s a bayou come from Bayou Long, it comes out…used to come out…at Blue Point Canal.

JD: Lil Bayou Long?

Russell: Yeah. You could go in at Blue Point Canal, and go to the head of it, they had a lil slough on the right, you take it and it go into the Hartman…go into Bayou Long.

JD: The canal you talking about, that was a pullboard canal?

Russell: Yeah. Just about all them canals was pullboard over there. Yeah. Williams Canal always was that. But the canal you goin through now wasn’t. Diamond Slough was to the left of it, it was a narrow canal that went up. And for some reason they dug that canal on the side of it. Diamond Slough always was there, cause Diamond Slough…I still could take you to it, cause I fish crawfish in it. It’s about 150 yards in the woods, left of Diamond Slough, Williams Canal.

JD: They just go up side by side like that? Right from the lakeshore, right on into the woods?

Russell: I think it used to come out somewheres where that pocket [is]…they dug in there before my time, that was dug before my time, but I think it used to come out…same pocket [where] we used to change wheels? I think Diamond Slough used to go in right there, and go on up. Then when they come in they just dug straight up [from the lake].

JD: [looking at list of interview items] OK, uh, did y’all always use landing nets?

RD: Yeah, for big fish.

JD: For big fish. And the same thing? Steel for the rim and built just the same was except bigger mesh?

Russell: Bigger mesh.

JD: Made the same way though, everything the same?

Russell: Yeah, I done got away from it. I don’t use a landing net anymore, I got a lil gaff I use.

Russell: What kind of gaff, Russell? Tell me about it.

Russell: I got about a 14/0 hook, or 15/0 hook on…I can show it to you, it’s in my boat. I got uh…on a handle, about that long…

JD: About two feet, three feet long?

Russell: I guess, two feet…I’ve never lost a big fish since I got that.

JD: Now, how do you use it?

Russell: Just…anyway you see em, you put that hook in. I tell you how accurate it is, the other day I run a line in the channel over there.

JD: The channel, the big channel?

Russell: No, the lil channel, right there at Goat Island, there. There’s a blue cat about from here to my fireplace come off the hook, about 10 pounds.

JD: About 10 feet away.

Russell: And he come swimming. When he passed…

JD: You reached down [with the gaff]?

Russell: Reached down, and all my lengt [arm extended] in the water and I caught him. Caught him by the tail, about that far from the end of the tail. The fork of the tail.

JD: Must of jerked your arm when you…

Russell: Well, when I hook a fish I don’t stop. When I hook it [motion doesn’t stop], in the boat. I caught three, there, the other day, 51 pounds, 41 pounds and I believe a 45 pounds. And uh, on the same line, and, uh, when I hook a fish I don’t give him time to pull. When I get him up and I put that hook in him, he’s comin in the boat.

JD: Umhm. The hook was still in his mouth, and everything?

Russell: Oh yeah, the hook stay in his mouth. I put all the weight on the gaff.

JD: Umhm. Yeah. So that’s what you use now to land those big fish.

Russell: I’ve never lost a fish. What made me change, that was probly 10 years ago [that] I went to gaff, uh, I was in, uh, fishin Cypress Island Pass. And I had a goujon, I know he was a big one, it was about two foot under the water and I couldn’t get him no higher, the line was hung. I mean hung! I tried both sides, I tried and couldn’t get it loose. So, I come back to the other side, and uh, I just had made that gaff. And I pulled the line up tight, boy he was pullin, so I took that gaff arm length and I went under the water. I did that [sweep the gaff as deep as he could from his boat] and I hooked him. And when I hooked him, he come unhooked off the other hook. Put him in the boat, 45 pound goujon.

JD: That was lucky. If he’d a stayed hooked, you’d a been pullin on both ends [laughs].

Russell: I’d a pulled him loose. Oh yeah.

JD: Uh, you say you caught those great big fish in that pass between Goat Island and the…and the bank?

Russell: No, not the last ones I caught, that was the other day I was telling you about, 15 pounds blue cat. I’m catchin those big fish out in the bay, in the bayous back there. That’s all the got out there is big fish. Out of 270 pounds day before yesterday, I had 220 pounds of large, out of 270 pounds.

JD: Over six pounds, you talking about?

Russell: Over 15 pounds. They was all…

JD: You just turn em loose? [the docks won’t buy large fish]

Russell: No, I don’t turn none loose. I sell em. What I can’t sell, I fillet em and put in my freezer. Lent’s comin, I sell em. No, I don’t turn nothing loose, I’ve never lost a big one yet [to spoilage], but I know a lot of people.

JD: Yeah, yeah. You call on the telephone when you come in and say I have some fish, do you want something, or something like that? So, you sell from the house quite a bit.

Russell: Yeah. I got one colored guy in town, he buy 50, 60 pound a week of them big fish. And I got [one] live in Baldwin, he buys about… anywhere from 300 to 400 pounds of big fish a week, and then a couple other small places.

JD: Boy, that’s so much harder though, than just takin your fish to a dock and sayin here it is.

Russell: Well, I bring em here, put em on ice, and I call em and say they here. “If y’all want em, come get em”. And uh, I’ve seen some set out there as much as two days…I say “Well, I’m gone go fillet em”. By the time I get ready to go fillet em, somebody come by. [laughs]

JD: You not runnin every day like that though, huh?

Russell: When the weather permits..I run every day. I can’t sit in this house here day after day like that.

JD: Um, how about, uh, we already talked about hooks, you already told me about the old hooks. How about the hooks y’all used to use…the old…when y’all used to fish, when you first started. What size hooks did yall use?

Russell: About the same size [as now], 2s and 3s. The onlyest difference, stainless steel last forever and uh, the hooks you had [then] about a month in the water, you ain’t had no more point on em. You had to change em.

JD: Did y’all always use…to…to…to find your line, and do different things with it…did y’all always use a drag of some kind?

Russell: I always carry a drag…I always have. In case you hook a line, one hangs up, you can use your drag to unhang it sometime. Or either catch it on the other side. I’ve always…but I remember the time you could put anything in that lake, you didn’t have to hide it. Just put it on poles, nobody’d bother it. The times are different, now.

JD: So, they didn’t…everybody didn’t always use a drag then?

Russell: No.

JD: Seems like it would always been useful.

Russell: Well, it’s always been useful to unhook lines. I always got one in my boat. I never leave without my drag. Like right now, fishing out there [the bay] I got my drag. ‘Cause I got to hide everything, uh, in the bayous, I put a line I cut the pole off under the water on both sides. Oh yeah, you got to. Sport fishermen out there? You got to. And then they still find em.

JD: You say you cut the pole off, you don’t use stobs?

Russell: No, not out there. It’s a soft bottom and you gotta have something that’s gonna go real deep. Soft bottom, them bayous in there, you might have to push it 7, 8 feet in the mud to hold. It’s soft. And then once I get my line tied under the water I take my hatchet and I chop it off…so deep under the water where they can’t see it.

JD: Well, the tide comes up and down, though, doesn’t it?

Russell: Yeah, well, I always…if I cut it off on a high tide, when I go back I recut it again. Short on a low tide, where they can’t find it. They still find em. Now and then they’ll go along with their rod and reels and they’ll hook one and if they find it they gone take the fish. Not only take the fish, they cut the stageon…make it bad. [if] they’d unhook the fish, and take the fish, it wouldn’t be too bad, but they just come along the line and cut the stageon.

JD: Well, they scared of getting caught, for one thing. I guess. Um, tell me about stob poles for settin lines. When did y’all first start using stobs, and stob poles?

Russell: Well, as the water got deep in the lake, in the channel and stuff, then it got to be…just swapping poles to stob poles, it’s so much easier. With a stob, and you know in the summertime you got to put corks on your line [to get away from crabs], but in the wintertime it works perfect. Don’t need no sinkers. Put a sinker on each end and [?] everything is on the bottom. Oh, I probly, people been usin stob pole to put in line now for probably, that I can remember, at least 40 years. We used to make…go cut a lil cypress in the woods, before we had aluminum and stuff, and just make one out of a lil cypress.

JD: Make a pole?

Russell: Yeah. Piece of pipe, and put on the end.

JD: But y’all always had pipe, or something like that, to put on the end.

Russell: Oh yeah, could always find pipe. I built one on the Boutte, a cypress jiggerpole 80 foot long. So, I could put stob in the middle of the Fisher [Bayou].

JD: And it worked? You could put stob in the middle…?

Russell: Yeah. Find a cypress, cypress about that big, at the butt.

JD: About 2 feet thick.

Russell: And it took me about a month with a hatchet to get it down, and then a planer, I got the whole thing down to about that size.

JD: About two inches, three inches in diameter.

Russell: You back it off the boat and put the stob in it and you push it forward. Then when you get ready to put your stob you run it off the front and that…

JD: The current take it down?

Russell: Take it down, and when you hit bottom with that much pole and that much weight, about two licks…you back off. [that’s all it would take to drive the stob into the bottom] [laughs]

JD: That must have been the world’s…world’s record stob pole [laughs].

Russell: I broke it, drivin a stob one day, and I never did rebuild another one. After that we started…

JD: I guess not. Not after all that trouble.

Russell: After that we started usin anchors. Yeah. And they had put some rocks on that pipeline and stuff down there, and we would go borrow they rocks.

JD: [laughs] Borrow their rocks? And make anchors out of em? I hear you there. Uh, what kind of stobs…what…what…what do you like to use for stobs, when you cut stobs?

Russell: I like uh, sycamore, they the best. They stiff, hard and they the best. I use willows, I use whatever’s really handy, but I like that sycamore. Yeah, them lil sycamore? They grow uniform size. They’ll be…you go ten foot up and they the same size as they are at the butt. A willow [?], and then you got to peel the bark back… I use willow, but my favorite one is sycamore when I can find it.

JD: Do they grow thick sometimes?

Russell: Oh yeah, they grow thick. I know some spots on the other side the lake over there, they just like willows. And uh, that’s all we use…we can use for shrimp bushes, that stuff now, sycamore, or uh, ash. Cause the beavers…anything else you put, they cut it.

JD: Why won’t they cut sycamore and ash, you think?

Russell: Don’t like the bark on it.

JD: Oh, they eatin the bark? They tryin to eat the bark, that’s why they cut em?

Russell: You go out there and put 30 poles today, and go back tomorrow you might have five left. They gone cut em all. I put uh, right at the lower end of the lil channel one…one day. That’s been…oh, that’s been a lot of years ago…when the shrimps was on top the water, so I say “Boy, shrimp bushes will work good”. Went that evening, made ten bushes, big willow bushes, boy, when I tied em together, they was about that big [four feet across].

JD: So, it was willow, not myrtle?

Russell: Yeah. Willow, that day, yeah, it was willow. I come back the next day, right behind where I tied it at [the bushes on the poles], they was all cut off. Beaver sat there all night long and chewed my bushes till he cut em all off right behind the string. They won’t mess with myrtle wax. They love that willow. [laughs].

JD: Now, there’s more trouble with beavers now, than there used to be?

Russell: More than ever, they getting ticker and ticker out there.

JD: In the old days, was there any trouble with em at all?

Russell: No, there wasn’t none [no beavers]. They came down with the sand bars. I remember the first nutria I seen down here. And there wasn’t no beavers. I was…me and Cleo [Neg]. We was trappin, and uh, we didn’t know what in the hell a nutria was.

JD: Where was that, y’all were trappin?

Russell: On the end of the bars, when the end of the bars got about even with, uh, the lower end of Goat Island. They were trappin them bars out there. And uh, we caught a neutral [nutria]. And from then on it’s started showin up thick, they comin from up north, I guess.

JD: Y’all didn’t know what to do with em?

Russell: No, come to find out they were worth good money. We get about $7.00 a piece for em. They were worth real good money! Them days, look, $7.00 a lot of money. You go catch seven, eight a day? Made a big year there, with them neutrals. [laughs].

JD: Seven or eight a day, huh? And now you could catch 700 if you preferred to.

Russell: But, you know they not as thick as they were, no? The neutrals.

JD: In some places they not, but people tell me in other places they really bad. Places like below, uh, Wax Lake, in those new bars? Below Wax Lake? They tell me they cutting out to where there’s no vegetation some places atall!

Russell: Yeah, well, I know back here…back of Franklin, in that marsh there. You run them bayous you could see em, you know, just [jumping off of the levees into the water]. You see one now and then, now.

JD: Very few. Course, the alligators done got thick too.

Russell: Yeah, the alligators thick. Thicker the alligators get the less neutral get.

JD: Do you remember anybody ever use snag hooks to fish with?

Russell: Snag lines? Yeah, I used em.

JD: Tell me about that.

RD: That’s hard to fish. We used to use a rod, we had a double steel rod. The two [rods] would stay together and you had to sit there and lace all them hooks on that rod. A crossin bayou Boutte…I’m tryin to remember, I think it was 600 hooks.

JD: Now tell…I don’t understand, now, OK…go ahead and explain to me, what I don’t understand I’ll ask you to explain [later]…

Russell: It was 600 hooks, and it would take about three rods, or four rods to put that much on. So, you had to have em in different pieces. It’s to put it out [that was hard]. You had to run it on that rod so where when you take off to put it out, them hooks would come off one at the time, on that rod. You see, you hook the hooks on and you got a jammin rod on top, not too tight but to keep them hooks from jumpin. And uh, a rod about that long [about 5 feet long]. I guess four feet, four feet. And you had to set there, each one…

JD: Slide the hook off…?

Russell: Slide the hook off…

JD: Now the hook was tied on something, the stageon…?

Russell: On the main line.

JD: It was tied on the main line?

Russell: Yeah, the main line would hang in a loop. You tie that to the bank, and take off goin across slow, and them hooks would come off that, uh, that rod…until you get to the other side. You had to stop a ways out and change rods, change the line, put another rod on, cause it would take 600 hooks to go across the Fisher [bayou]. And that bayou wasn’t that wide.

JD: [draws something] That’s the sort of thing you talking about? The hooks would be between the two rods, and it would be like this, and the main line…they were hooked directly on the main line? The hooks were?

Russell: Yeah, you had two different length stageons. We were usin a six inch stageon and a 12 inch stageon. One twelve, and one six.

JD: Yeah, so they covered more…more country like that? OK, and it would help me if I could see that, and I can’t see it. You talking about when you set the line, that’s when you had all the trouble? Because so…before you would start you had this four-foot double rod and you’d have the hooks all…

Russell: Yeah. You started the first hook and you had to set there and put every hook on that rod.

JD: Before you ever left the bank?

Russell: Before you ever left the bank. You better, cause you wasn’t gone put it out otherwise. That’s too many hooks, them hooks is four inches apart.

JD: Four inches apart on the main line? So, you had stageons goin every four inches. Off the main line.

Russell: And you had a six-inch stageon and a 12-inch stageon.

JD: OK. No swivels or anything, just straight line. Now was this…were the stageons made out of looping the main line. Or tied on the main line?

Russell: I made em both ways. I made em right on the line, and I’ve made em…tied em on the line. I rather make em on the line, because you used to catch a lot of them big gars and you’d slip em if you make [the hooks] right on the line. That [snag line] catch everything! Buffalo, gous, gar, goujons, catfish…but you also had to know what you was doin with em. If you didn’t know what you was doin with em, you wastin you time.

JD: Well, that’s what I’m tryin to understand. You have this thing set up now…you leave from the bank, you tie your main line to the bank or something, and you begin to pull off your hooks one at a time…

Russell: They pull their ownself off.

JD: OK, they pull off by themselves as you go out more from the bank. So, you got as many as you can put on that four-foot rod. Would you put the whole line’s worth of hooks on that rod?

Russell: No, you couldn’t put the whole line. You couldn’t put 600 on…put about 300 on a rod.

JD: OK, then you’d stop and…

Russell: You’d have to stop and tie the other main line to the other rod and take off again.

JD: So, you had your rods made up already, to go…your four-foot rods, several of em in your boat…whatever it would take…

Russell: You got to pick that up every seven or eight days. You can’t leave em out. Snag line works on a principle [that] shrimp’s what catches the fish. You make you molasses…we used to use cottonseed oil and I don’t member…something that’s gone sweeten that line up, make the shrimps come to it.

JD: The line itself?

Russell: Yeah, the line, the hooks and stageons.

JD: This was cotton?

Russell: Yeah, built some out of cotton. And you had soak that in there, we used to soak em about two days. And the main line, stageons, everything. You put it on your rod first, you have it all ready and put it to soak. And then when it’s soaked enough, you dry it, until that stuff dry on it, so it will last longer. And then you go put it out. But if you leave em out there, they get to where they won’t catch nothing. You got to have that to where it will draw the shrimps.

JD: So, did you ever pick em up and reuse em on those rods?

Russell: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, I had three at one time. I think it was three.

JD: In Bayou Boutte?

Russell: Yeah, and uh, I’d fish three of em, and I’d go pick em up. When I’d pick them up I’d have three more, I’d put in it’s place. And then I’d rework those three while them there was fishin.

JD: And did they catch good, those lines?

Russell: Yeah. They catch better when you get a big norther or something, during the wintertime. Anything to move em, big high tide or anything, they’d catch good.

JD: Well, they call em snaglines because people always thought that they hooked the fish when the fish wasn’t even interested, the fish passed by and it would hook em in the gills, or something like that.

Russell: They believe, but they all wet about that. They uh, they make a pass at a bait, a shrimp or something, and that swirl will catch em. I catch some on lines out there now, the fish is there but they won’t bite. Some hooked by the tail, some hooked by the gills. Like when they make a pass at the bait, when they go to turn that hook’ll grab one now and then.

JD: When you…how often did you run the snaglines?

Russell: We run em twice a day. Didn’t want to let em set too long cause a fish get hooked anywhere, and it would die. Cause you take, uh, a 30 pound blue cat might have ten, twelve hooks in im. And he get one, and he go to millin then he gone keep pickin em up. That’s where that Yellow Tag was the best hook in the world for that, sharp, sharp and had a long point on it.

JD: It did huh? Course, the longer and thinner the point the faster it would rust too.

Russell: Yeah. Well, the way we picked em up and redoped em every seven days, they’d last a long time. But if you didn’t dope em, they wouldn’t catch, so you had to pick em up to clean em.

JD: So, it was actually makin the line…uh…you actually made it like bait for shrimp…the shrimp would be attracted to the…fish would be attracted to the shrimp on the line, hangin on to it.

Russell: That’s what it amounts to. Used a lot of molasses, and uh, brown sugar…we used brown sugar already. And we still used that oak…that oak stuff. It makes like a paste when you boil it down enough. You put the molasses and uh, cottonseed oil in it, and whatever attracts shrimp. We even used pogey meal.

JD: Now, yall stopped usin those kind of lines. Why?

Russell: Illegal.

JD: OK, they got illegal. I knew they got illegal, I didn’t know if that’s what stopped yall, or… It sounds like it’s an awful lot of trouble, though, to…to go to…to use lines like that, Russell.

Russell: It’s a lot of trouble, but it don’t…you not confined to one fish. You could catch just about any fish that’s gone swim. It’s deadly on spoonbills [paddle fish]. Oh yi, they ain’t got a chance!

JD: But you’d never, uh…could you sell spoonbills?

Russell: Oh yeah. Once upon a time they had a good market on em.

JD: You could? I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. Did you ever eat one?

Russell: I tried, I don’t like it.

JD: Aren’t they real oily?

Russell: Oily, oily. Taste like cod liver oil.

JD: Well, why would people have bought that to use, I wonder.

Russell: I don’t know. But they did. They still got a big market on em up north. They got people up there, they uh…they live by spoonbills. They got some lakes up the country…watching a piece on TV, there…they trying to control em a lil bit so they don’t catch em out.

JD: I knew that was a problem catchin em out with sturgeons in some places up north. They were catchin the big ones and there wasn’t any left to breed. That’s what I heard, anyway. So, snaglines were something yall really used, then, huh?

RD: Oh yeah. We used em.

JD: Paddles. What do you remember about paddles? From the beginning to now?

Russell: Well, [when] paddles started, you’d go in the swamp and you’d split you a big piece of square cypress about that big [six inches wide], and you come home and you make you one.

JD: Umhm. Now, you split you a piece of square cypress, you talking about off of one of those pews, like you talking about?

Russell: Yeah, same thing.

JD: Even me, when I was fishin with y’all, we would find some of those…those slabs floating, and you’d make one out of those slabs if it was big enough.

Russell: I brought home a skiffload of wood last year. Boy, I hated to cut it, it was so pretty. I found one settin on a ridge back there, on the levee. The meat on it was about that thick [8 to 10 inches].

JD: That’s a hollow log, you talking about?

Russell: Yeah. I burned all winter, on it. I loaded my skiff. I had my chain saw with me, and I cut it in blocks about that long [two feet]. I’d take my hatchet [and split it]. Put it in the skiff. I couldn’t hold all [of it]. All winter long, we burned it.

JD: And you burned that cypress wood. You ought to be ashamed [laughs]. It wasn’t very big…very long?...the stump itself?

Russell: No, about 12 foot, I guess.

JD: You cut…you burnt the whole thing?

Russell: Yeah. They had about 8, 10 inches of meat on it, I guess, all the way around. But it was about that big around [about 4 feet in diameter]. I was lookin for crawfish and I had plenty time to play, so I went and put out…scattered 20 traps and on the way out I spotted it. Run the skiff right on the side of it on the levee, and I busted it all to pieces.

JD: So, you cut it in rounds, in effect, you cut it in rounds with your chain saw and…

Russell: Chain saw, and my hatchet.

JD: Your hatchet would split it?

Russell: You get a good…one lick! Talk about! That’s just like ash, that’s why I’m burnin ash this year, that’s why I like ash, it splits so easy.

JD: You uh, you brought ash in from the Basin, to burn?

Russell: Yeah. Went cut one tree there, oh, about two weeks ago I guess. I cut one about 30 feet long.

JD: You just…well, it’s green, isn’t it?

Russell: Ash burns just as good green as it do dry.

JD: Come on! Really?

Russell: That’s the onlyest wood that’ll burn green, real good.

[shows me some ash he is currently burning, it’s green]

JD: Looks like it splits pretty good.

Russell: Aw, it splits like hot cakes. Take that box full right there, when it’s cold we’ll light the fireplace about 4:00 in the evening, and that box full will last till we go to bed at 10:00.

Russell: So, it burns slow too. Burns slow. It gives a pretty fire, and it don’t pop. Cypress will pop, but not that.

JD: Got a lot of resin in it, that cypress does, I guess. You ever use that, we talking about paddles and stuff, how about the old days when they had oars on those push boats. What did they use for oars on those push boats?

Russell: Cypress-made oars. Go split you one the right length. Most of em was 8-foot oars. Yeah, they used four foot on the inside and five foot on the outside.

JD: So, you had…OK…so that’s how it was, four foot and five foot.

Russell: No, 9-foot oars, I take it back. Grandpa used to make…he used to make em to sell. Grandpa Old Man Daigle? Yeah, he used to make em to sell. He make 9-foot oars. That’s four foot, I think…that’s four foot, cause the yoke always stick out the side of the skiff a lil bit. They’d make a special yoke, and you had your two foots-like on each side with two pins.

JD: Now oars, did the oars have the little uh, the metal bracket [?] in them, or was there…?

Russell: No, just put a leather strap and you grease it good, use some wide leather strappin.

JD: Would they sit on a pin, or would they…?

RD: Yeah, they would hook on that pin, that pin standing, that oar would set in front of it. And that leather strappin would hook on the pin.

JD: Oh, OK. So, you just put the oar in a box, then, kind of…two things like that, the oar would sit in it?

Russell: No, it’s just this square block, just like if you set a block and you put a pin here. And that oar would set in front of the pin. It eventually would cut it’s ownself a lil slot… a lil groove, like. It wasn’t much. That block was kind of round, you know, when you’d go down, it would still be round and when you come up it would ride that round back and forth.

JD: You push those boats pretty good with those things?

Russell: Make good time. I remember the time I was a kid, everybody had one. You wanted to go out and run a line out in the lake there, hell, that cost gas. They’d just take the pullin skiff and go out there and do it. Fact, I used one. The old man had one. I used one when I was a kid a long time. Fish right out the mouth of the canal. We’d live right there. Five minutes you was at your line with a pullin skiff. Hell, you can pull that skiff at least four or five miles an hour.

JD: You can, huh?

Russell: You pull it faster than you can walk. Hell of a lot faster.

JD: We talked a lil bit about motors before. Uh, your memories of…of…of motorized boats. Start then, with the Lockwoods?

Russell: Lockwoods. Lockwood Ash, and they had Detroit. The old man had a two horst Detroit, him, when I was a lil, lil, bitty kid. Far back as I can remember. Probly the one you remember had a timer this way on it. The one he had come from the crank and would go this way. I don’t know exactly how it works, but that’s the way it was.

JD: And the Lockwood, you could reverse by changing the timing?

Russell: The Detroit too.

JD: You could change the timing, reverse the timing, and it would reverse the engine?

Russell: Yeah. Detroit come a long ways since then. Now they make the GMs. General Motors, Detroit.

JD: Was that Lockwood made to do that or was that just something y’all found out it would do?

Russell: It was made to do that.

JD: Could you do that while the engine was runnin?

RD: A good four-horse Lockwood, you never touch that flywheel. You could stop it…they always had a place somewheres on the flywheel, on the timing, where when you gone pull it, it was gone hit center. When it hit center, she go one way or the other. And that firin…now if it was cold it wouldn’t do it cause there wasn’t no gas on the piston. But if you been runnin it, once you started it, one that was working right? You never touch that flywheel. Usually, you had to pull it against the compression. [he offers tea].

JD: Do you use one of those lil unhookers in your boat? Uh…

Russell: No, I don’t like em. They mess the hooks up. Lot of people like em. They always twist your hook one way or the other.

JD: They do? When you flip that fish over? Ok. So, you don’t like those.

Russell: That’s all Edward use, him.

JD: I know, I been with Edward a couple times and he uses those things a lot. Let’s talk about something, uh…well, lets talk…just to finish this up right here…how about a hand ax. Did people always keep a hand ax or something like that in their boats? Long time ago?

Russell: Long as I can remember. I carry one with me all the time…[if you] want to cut a pole, want to cut a stob, or…When I’m fishin crawfish I carry one. If I get stuck between two trees, I cut my way out.

JD: You cut the tree or you cut your boat…oh, you can’t cut your boat, it’s aluminum. [laughs].

RD: The tree. Now, I carry a chain saw all the time with me. It makes a lot of difference. Since the storm [Hurricane Andrew], I never used to because of…what that was? Three years ago? I carry a chain saw all the time now.

JD: And why is that?

Russell: You can get in a hell of a mess without one. Uh, this year I got…let’s see exactly how that work…I was comin ahead goin over a log, and they had another one, kind of a fork in it. The bow of my skiff went into it, into the fork, just about…I pushed it a lil bit, the unit fell behind another tree. Without the chain saw I’d a stayed there..

JD: It had you penned in, both front and back

Russell: That front tree was about that big [ 6 inches], and I had to cut it.

JD: You had to cut the front tree? You’d a been there a long time with a hand ax tryin to cut that tree, eh?

Russell: I’d a cut it, I guess, but with a hatchet it would’a took a hour, or so. That chain saw just shhhhhp.

JD: How long a chain saw? What size you use?

Russell: I got a 18-inch Stihl, I got a 14-inch Poulan. I got two of em.

JD: Do they both work good?

Russell: Uh, I ain’t used the Poulan in a long time, Russ used it a lil while last year, but my Stihl, it ain’t run yet this year. I pull it out the closet, it’ll go. That’s the best I’ve ever used.

Fini

Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 41