A Fish Tale

If fishing was good on the upper end of Hatchett Creek then it must be even better in the waters between US-280 and US-231 Bridges. George, Bob, Steve and I decided to try it since there was a good chance no one had attempted it lately and we would be fishing in virtually virgin waters. Mr. "X" found out about it and tagged along. He had just purchased a new Coleman canoe and was anxious to get it wet. He had educated himself on his last trip the hard way.

Our goal was to catch a mess of fish and have a fish fry that night at the house. The best way to catch the most fish was to paddle tandem and hit every foot of the creek along each bank with a lure. George and I were in his red Mohawk, Steve and Bob were in Steve’s green Coleman and Mr. "X" went in his new red Coleman. Mr. "X" started first and stayed well ahead of everyone and out of the way. Fish were being caught almost as soon as the rods began flipping. I was paddling our boat and Steve was paddling the other one. George and I used a Styrofoam ice chest and Bob and Steve used a 5-gallon plastic bucket to keep the fish in.

The sky was overcast and there was a good chance of rain. We weren’t too concerned about getting wet since it was so warm. I wore shorts and was ready for a swim.

George and I were leading the fish catching contest and were proud to announce it. We were carrying about thirty something fish total, and we had caught most of them.

It was only about 10:00 AM and George and I were about 5 minutes ahead of Steve and Bob. I managed to slide our boat onto a rock, get sideways and turn us over. Most of the fish spilled out and swam away. We gathered our boat and gear and were disgusted with the loss of a good mess of fish. The only thing to do was to get back under way and catch more fish.

A few minutes later the motion of a large fin waving in the air caught my attention. George and I saw the two Gar at about the same time, lying in the shoals like they had accidentally run aground. They didn’t move when we slid past, so I whacked one over the head with my paddle. The other one shot off like a missile and the one I hit flopped about with a gash dust behind its eyes. This was the first time I had had the opportunity to examine one of these things up close. It looked prehistoric and dangerous. Sharp teeth lined its long snout and there seemed to be more fins than necessary on its cigar shaped body. It was about 4 feet long and with splotches of lighter green on its back. It's a good thing that these things are not aggressive; they would give a barracuda some stiff competition.

With the 4-foot-long fish lying at our feet, the temptation to play a trick on Steve and Bob came over me. I pulled out my pistol and fired it into the air knowing they would hear it. As we waited, George stepped on a slick rock and his feet shot out from under him like he was on ice. He fell face first into the water and came up with a grimmest on his face. I helped him to his feet, and he reached for his shin. Somehow during the fall, he scrapped the length on his shinbone on a sharp rock. Blood was beginning to run down his leg from the scrape. About this time, Steve and Bob slathered up and were looking at the big fish lying dead on a rock. I told them how it had attacked a fish we were reeling in and that I shot it when it leaped into the air chasing the smaller bass. I could tell they thought I was full of it but when they seemed to doubt my story I asked them, "What do you think I did then, kill it with my paddle?" I left it at that, and they weren’t sure what to believe. They didn’t even believe us when we told them we had turned over and lost all of the fish until we showed them our empty bucket.

We continued fishing and caught fish at a good rate. Two men in canoes passed us as they headed down creek. It turned out their canoes were green and red, just like ours. Since Mr. "X" learned last year what happens when you don’t keep up he was going to make sure he was well ahead of everyone this time. His "strategy" was to continuously look behind him and whenever he saw a red or green canoe, he would just paddle hard to insure no one passed him. This turned out to be a blessing because we never saw Mr. "X" again until we got to the US-231 Bridge where he had been waiting for a long time.

Steve and Bob let George and I keep the fish they caught since we had a Styrofoam ice chest and it would hold more than their bucket. We caught several good-sized fish at Dunham’s rock where we ate lunch. By now we had caught back what we lost before by turning over. The fish were biting good, but the weather was turning bad. Light rain began to fall as we left Dunham’s rock and sputtered out a few minutes later. The overcast sky made conditions even better since the sun wasn’t baking down on us and the glare was kept to a minimum. I would imagine since fish don’t have any eyelids they tend to move around in the shallow water more during overcast days.

George and I were approaching the falls and started putting down our fishing rods and taking up our paddles. The Mohawk handles a little different from the Coleman. There is no keel so turning requires a different stroke to make it go where you want it to go. We both paddled the down the falls and through the rapids without turning over. The Mohawk is a little less stable in roll than the Coleman and having another person along makes it even tipsier.

We picked up a few more fish before we entered the next set of rapids, famous for turning over canoes. I saw the rock sticking up in the middle of where we were heading and felt the boat heading straight for it but nothing I did seemed to be effective in changing our course. We hit the rock, slid along it until it was mid-way along the canoe, tipped up river and sunk the canoe, all in about three seconds. The fish thanked us as they hurriedly swam by us on their way to freedom. I was slightly upset at our situation. What made matters worse were the two whaccos standing on a rock downstream watching us heaving our boat off the rock and sloshing downstream collecting our stuff. We were back in our boat by the time we got to where they stood looking at us with this all-knowing look like, "First time down Hatchett for you guys?" One of them had fished our water jug out as it floated by and said with a concerned look for our wellbeing, "Maybe you fellows should consider portaging around these next set of rapids since............", I cut him off with "Just give me the water jug, we’ll be fine." In hind sight I probably should have been nicer but we had just lost all our fish for the second time, wrapped our boat around a rock in front of spectators and then have them suggest, smugly no doubt, that maybe we should consider walking around the next rapids because we were obviously too inexperienced to do anything else. Not only did we go through the next rapids, but we fished it as well.

Steve and Bob saw everything since they were behind us. They came up on us and said they sure were glad the fish didn’t get away (they saw us pick up the floating Styrofoam box, but didn’t know it was empty). Bob said, "At least this time y’all managed to not dump all our fish out!" I told him that the box was empty, and we had lost all of our fish again and they might as well start fishing because there was nothing else to do, but neither he nor Steve believed me. Finally, Steve paddled up alongside us and verified for himself what we were claiming by looking in the box. "I can’t believe it! Y’all did lose all our fish again!" Both he and Bob were livid. We would never hear the end of this. George and I kept on fishing and so did Steve and Bob, but they kept their fish this time.

Between the four of us we had caught about 30 more fish, about what we had lost each time we turned over. All total, we caught about 100 fish between the four of us. We had about thirty something the first time we turned over, caught thirty something back before the second turn over, and now had thirty something between us. That’s not bad for one day’s total catch.

By the time we got to our sandbar where we usually spend night 2 on our canoe trips, we had quit fishing and started concentrating on getting to the takeout before dark caught us. The sky was darker than ever, and the smell of approaching rain told us what to soon expect. The air was so still and quiet before the approaching storm that you could hear your heart beating in your ears.

The rain gushed down, and the wind whipped trees and blew leaves across the creek and into our boat. We fought to keep the nose of our canoe pointed down creek against the crosswind. There was no use trying to read the rapids since splattering raindrops made every feature blend into a gray-green blur. We hit another rock and capsized for the third time that day. BUT, the fish were safe inside the Styrofoam box that was tied shut and strapped into our boat. George was sitting down in knee-deep water holding onto the side of our canoe. It was raining so hard that we had to yell to be heard over the roar. It was raining so hard that it was hard to breathe without getting strangled. I waded over to help George up. I grabbed his arm and yanked like I was going for the gold in the dead lift competition at the Olympics, but he wasn’t budging. He kept saying something and I could tell he was uncomfortable by the look on his face every time I heaved on his arm. The rain kept beating down on us with a driving wind behind it. I bent down to ask George why he couldn’t get up, and after about the third time of saying, "WHAT?" I finally realized he was trying to tell me that I was standing on his leg and that that was the reason he couldn’t get up. It was his sore leg too. We gathered our gear and ourselves and started again down the creek. The rain slacked off by the time we got to US-231 where Mr. "X" had been waiting for a couple of hours. Steve and Bob came drifting up and stopped short of the mud bank where George and I had heaved our boat up. Instead, they hauled their boat up the vertical creek bank covered with briers and cane shoots. Everyone was in a foul mood for several reasons and in no mood for jokes. Paddling tandem has its advantages as far as fishing is concerned, but all day in the same boat with someone else almost always ends in disaster.

We had thirty something fish to clean but were too tired to enjoy cooking and eating them. After we got home we cleaned the fish and cleaned ourselves. We were amazed at the success we had that day. Even today we hesitate to tell anyone about that trip because they soon begin thinking we are pulling their leg, telling a fish story. But every bit of it is true, except for the part about shooting the gar; I really did kill it with my paddle.

 

G. Sanders, June. 1991

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