The Mystery Catfish

 

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This week I traveled through Allen Parish and crossed over the Kinder Canal on both Highway 190 and Highway 165.  The Kinder Canal is an irrigation canal dug by the Kinder Canal Company decades and decades ago in order to provide water for farmers to irrigate their rice.  There was a large relift station on the Calcasieu River in which water from the river is pumped into the canal and flowed for miles and miles.  Farmers bordering the canal are able to use the water without investing in a deep water well.  They simply pay shares of their production to the Canal Company.  It is quite an engineering marvel, in my humble estimation.

As I passed over the canal, it brought to mind memories of riding my bicycle down to the canal to fish as a kid.  I smiled as I remembered one particular adventure.  I had a friend named David who lived right on the side of the Kinder Canal east of town.  He invited me over to his house to campout one weekend almost 50 years ago.  We pitched a tent on the side of the canal and dug worms and began setting out trot lines, baiting the hooks with worms, frogs, grasshoppers, and crickets.  We had lines set all down the banks of the canal amidst the cypress trees.  Every 30 minutes or so, we would go down the bank and check our lines for fish, rebaiting as needed, keeping our eyes peeled for snakes.

We started a campfire and sat around it in the interim, telling stories.  It was great fun, except we didn't bring any water.  The water from the canal was too muddy to drink.  What to do?  It was then that my friend, David, began to inform us that his Dad was a Green Beret and had taught him a trick if you were thirsty.  You would simply get a small stone, like what we call "pea gravel" and put it in your mouth.  It fools your mouth into making a bunch of saliva.  The theory is that this quenches your thirst.  Me and David and his little brother, Michael, that had joined us, ran down to the side of the road and found some small, smooth stones to put in our mouths.  Spit soon filled our mouths, but I can't testify that it made me any less thirsty.  I can't recommend it.  I give it one star out of five.

With stones in our mouths, we ran to check our trot lines.  We had caught a catfish on one of the lines.  There was a lot of whooping and hollering.  Success!  It was a blue cat.  We quickly skinned it and gutted it.  In addition to having no water to drink on this campout, we had no cooking utensils or seasoning.  That didn't discourage us.  We stuck a stick through the catfish and would spin the catfish on the stick over the fire, rotisserie style.  After a bit, the fish was done, or so we thought.  We were tired of spinning the fish, and we were hungry.  We passed the fish stick (ha ha) around the fire and we would each take a bite of the bland, unseasoned, and half-cooked fish, being careful not to eat bones.

At this point clouds of mosquitoes descended upon us like the plagues of Egypt.  David told of another trick to avoid mosquitoes.  You were supposed to coat your body with mud.  Based on the efficacy of his previous trick, I opted out of coating my body with mud.  Our campout at this point had hit rock bottom.  It was hot.  We were sweating.  Without water to drink, I was getting dehydrated, and I spit out the rock.  Green-beret trick or not, it wasn't working.  I also had a fishy taste in my mouth, mosquito bites on every square inch of my body.  I longed for the comforts of home, but it was too late in the night to back out.  I climbed in the tent, zipped it up and went to sleep.

The next morning, David and I were awakened by his brother.  He told us that HE had caught the biggest catfish he had ever seen.  It was a huge catfish!  He was making fun of us because we were older and yet he had caught the biggest fish.  He was trying to tell us that he had caught it on his fishing pole.  But something wasn't quite right.  As we looked at the big mudcat he was holding, we realized that he was pulling a fast one on us.  The fish still had a hook in its jaw along with thick black trot line tied to it that Michael had cut with his pocket knife off of OUR trot line.  It wasn't monofilament line like that on a rod and reel.  He had stolen our fish!  Mystery solved.

We were mad at him, but it was morning and we weren't hungry for catfish for breakfast.  Especially not bland, half cooked catfish, so we let him run on back to his house with the fish.  

Fresh From the Bayou

"We can skin a buck, we can run a trot line, and a country boy can survive." - Hank Williams Jr. 

Our neighbors are the Williams.  No relation to Hank Jr. that I know of, but they can indeed survive by living off the land.  With the expansion in the neighborhood we talked about in this post, they have decided to purchase some land further out in the country to escape the encroaching sprawl.  We pray daily for all our neighbors and our rural neighborhood.

The neighbors have hoop nets on Bayou Nezpique and catch lots of catfish.  They skin them and gut them and sell to local fish markets.  They bring some to us, too!  They brought us several 1 gallon ziploc bags of whole catfish.  On Saturday afternoon, I made a salt water brine and soaked the catfish for a couple hours.  Then I drained the brine and patted the fish dry.

I had an idea in my head.  We love to eat smoked salmon.  Catfish is not salmon (or maybe it is the redneck salmon), but I don't see why it can't be smoked.  I searched around and found a recipe.  I made up a rub and coated the sides of the whole catfish.  I got the smoker fired up to 225 degrees, filled the water bowl and set the largest catfish on the bottom rack.

And the smaller catfish on the top rack.  I added some pecan wood on top of the coals and closed up the top.

Smoke was pouring out of the top vent.  I kept my eye on the temperature and adjusted the vents to keep it steady.

After an hour, I checked the internal temperature with my meat thermometer and 'flake tested' it.  They were done!

We brought them inside and asked God's blessing on our meal.  The smoked catfish was delicious!

We are thankful for good neighbors and their ability to "live off the land."  You never know, that may be a crucial skill in our brave, new world...

The Neighbor's Nets

 The preacher man says it's the end of time

And the Mississippi River she's a-goin' dry

The interest is up and the Stock Market's down

And you only get mugged if you go downtown

I live back in the woods, you see

My woman and the kids, and the dogs, and me

I got a shotgun, a rifle, and a 4-wheel drive

And a country boy can survive

Country folks can survive...

we can skin a buck; we can run a trotline

And a country boy can survive

- Hank Jr.

Listening to the lyrics of that country song, I often thing that Ol' Hank knows my neighbors.  We have really good neighbors.  While we have farm animals and grow crops for most of our food, our neighbors hunt, fish, trap for theirs.  They truly live off the land.  They are accomplished sportsmen.  This weekend I saw a big project underway next door, and I walked over to see what was on the agenda.  I was greeted by a powerful smell - like black tar or creosote.  They had a plastic children's swimming pool and were pouring pails of the black substance into the pool.

For quite some time they were building hoop nets in their barn, attaching netting around fiberglass hoops.  Now that they had the nets all built, they were applying a coating to the nets to protect them from rot and the elements.  Once they coated all the nets, they stretched them out to allow them to dry.

The hoop nets were all different sizes.  I asked what the price would be if you wanted to buy one.  They told me about $450.  My neighbors primarily put the hoop nets out in Bayou Nezpique and the Mermentau River.  They catch lots and lots of catfish and buffalo (carp) and gar fish.  Any other sport fish (bass, sacalait) must be released.  Their plan is to place nets in the Atchafalaya River and also the Sabine River.  They've secured a deal in which they sell all the fish they catch to fish markets and sell any buffalo they catch for crawfish bait.  

They have built a number of different sizes and styles of nets - all with different goals in mind.  The traps are dropped in the river and are weighted down with weights/anchors.  A GPS marker marks the spot of each net.  (You don't want anyone else knowing where your nets are!)  The nets are dropped with the opening faced upstream.  Since fish swim upstream, they swim right into the "funnel" which appears to be a big, dark log.  There the biggest fish remain in the net, while the smaller ones swim right through the openings.

The nets are run daily by dropping a big hook that hooks onto the rope you see below in front of the net.  The net is pulled into the boat.  The hoops telescope onto one another and the fish fall into the bottom of the boat.  Desirable fish are kept and the others are tossed back to continue growing.

My neighbors have always done this, but now as they are reaching retirement age, they are stepping up their game and have made more nets to catch plenty of fish to fill their freezers as well as sell to fish markets.  They look forward to putting the nets in the water.  The catch will be slow at first, but at the end of February and into the Spring, they anticipate filling their boat with fish.  They've invited me along, and when I go, I'll be sure to chronicle the outing.

'Cause you can't starve us out and you can't make us run

'Cause we're them old boys raised on shotgun

And we say "grace" and we say "Ma'am"

And if you ain't into that we don't give a damn darn.  ;)

The Boys of Summer

It was hot again today.  We got our chores done and waited for it to cool off a little. Benjamin's cousin, Vincent, is visiting with us for the week from Spring, Texas, and we thought it would be a good idea to see if we could go fishing in the late afternoon when the sun was low in the western sky. We ate supper and loaded the fishing poles, worms, and tackle box into the car.  Since it is a short drive and he needs the practice, Benjamin drove to what we call the 'gully.'

The gully is actually called Bayou Chene if you look on the map.  Bayou Chene (translates to Oak Bayou in French) is right down the road.  All you do is hang a left outside of our driveway and go about a mile.  The road at that point turns from a blacktop road into a gravel road and approximately 100 yards down the gravel road, there is a bridge over Bayou Chene that Koll Road passes over.  It has been really dry, so we weren't even sure there would be water, but we were pleasantly surprised to see water flowing, probably from water let out of surrounding crawfish ponds and rice fields. It was muddy water, like most water in Louisiana, but it was water, nonetheless.

Vincent & Benjamin

The boys scurried down the embankment, baited their hooks with a couple of fat worms, and threw their lines out in the bayou.  A big splash under the bridge got our attention.  It was a big bull frog. Benjamin shot at it with his bb gun as the big bull frog jumped away and into the water.  The fishing was slow going for a while, but the boys of summer were patient.

Slow Going

After no bites but seeing big splashes, we were getting Vincent situated on the other side of the bridge.  While we were on the bridge, Benjamin hollered, "Hey, I got a bite!"

We saw a bent pole, splashing water, and were expecting a huge behemoth to be hoisted from the muddy waters.  Except it wasn't.  It wasn't a keeper and therefore, the young catfish was released back into the bayou to grow some more.  Maybe we'll catch him later.

Benjamin & Vincent and their 'river monster'

There was still hope for fried catfish, but it was up to Vincent.  Benjamin's attention was distracted by a big armadillo that was foraging around the embankment for roots.  He was a tame armadillo and was not afraid of us at all, coming right up to us.  Maybe if the boys didn't catch some fish, we could throw the armadillo on the bbq pit?

Tricia came on the fishing trip with us.  Her job was primarily being the Safety Director for the fishing trip, ensuring that safe practices were used.  She made sure that the boys didn't get too near the edge of the bridge.  She also made sure that the fishermen didn't touch the armadillo since they carry leprosy and for an added safety bonus, when it started to get a little dark, she turned the light app on her cell phone on and, like a lighthouse, flashed out a beacon as passing motorists drove close, so that they saw that we were fishing on the bridge and didn't hit us.  Thanks to the Safety Director and her adept use of technology, we stood a good chance of returning home safely, but we wanted to catch some fish!  C'mon Vincent!

"Don't get too near the edge, Vincent," said Aunt Tricia.

There was still hope for a fried catfish dinner.  You can do it, Vincent!  When Vincent said he had a bite and his cork sunk beneath the muddy waters, I figured we better get out the corn meal out and start heating up some cooking oil.  My hopes were raised. Except as Vincent raised his fish, we realized it wasn't going to feed us.

Small Fry

Although not a keeper and definitely not big enough to eat, the boys of summer still had a good time. 

Vincent hoisting his catfish

My dreams of fried catfish for supper dropped faster than Vincent's catfish back into the Bayou. Fortunately, Tricia had made some Carne Guisada on homemade flour tortillas for supper, so we didn't go hungry.  We're not giving up, though. Perhaps tomorrow, we'll drive back down to the bayou and pull some larger fish up.  

School starts for the boys in a few short days, but there are still memories to be made, and they'll be trying to catch some more memories tomorrow (along with some catfish)!