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