Page 97 - South Mississippi Living - April, 2024

SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living | www.smliving.net April 2024 | 97
Sometimes, we just jumped on our bikes and spontaneously headed to a nearby fishing hole – usually when the grass needed cutting or some other onerous chores awaited us. At other times, we planned our angling adventures down to the last details.
As the chosen day of blissful freedom approached, we scoured our freezers and refrigerators
for frozen shrimp, chicken livers, leftover meats, old hot dogs, bread, cheese – anything we could use
for bait that our mothers wouldn’t terribly miss. Sometimes, we pooled our allowances to buy worms. (Side note: Mothers don’t like to discover a paper bag full of squirming worms in their refrigerators!)
When we couldn’t swipe or buy sufficient bait, we caught our own. We scooped minnows, crawfish and grass shrimp from roadside ditches. We snatched grasshoppers and crickets from weedy fields. We overturned pine straw to capture succulent worms. Sometimes, we kept smaller fish from previous expeditions for cut bait.
We stuffed the bait into our pockets, much to the chagrin of
our mothers who usually discovered “leftovers” on washday. Then, with one hand clutching a fishing rod and a handlebar and our other hand gripping a tackle box, we pedaled
as fast as we could to our chosen fishing hole du jour.
Often, we headed to our favorite fishing hole: “Ol’ Five Pound Canal.” This name will never show up on any maps. We never knew the official name of this waterway,
nor did we care, but this muddy drainage ditch flowed through our section of town, widened briefly as it crossed under a highway and had catfish in it. We could barely cast across it even when our reels weren’t clogged with sand and mud.
Under the bridge, it dropped to about five feet deep during wet weather. The canal eventually dumped into a river. Periodic floods replenished the fish population. During low water, fish became trapped in the relative depths of the pool around and under the bridge.
Occasionally, we spotted one
wily giant catfish, at least for
those waters. We dubbed him
“Ol’ Five Pound.” For years, neighborhood anglers chased “Ol’ Five Pound” as he tormented us with his unpredictable appearances. Sometimes, he surfaced just a
few feet from us, taunting us and refusing all offerings. We tried everything to nab, net or hook that cagey critter. Nothing worked. With ease, he stripped our baits cleanly from our hooks.
Infrequently, someone hooked a big fish, possibly Ol’ Five Pound. Inevitably, the fish broke the line or spit the hook. Each year, the legend of Ol’ Five Pound grew as did his real and imagined size.
Years later, I heard that someone pulled a large catfish from that hole. Same fish? Perhaps, but I prefer to think that Ol’ Five Pound died of old age after many years ruling his muddy kingdom and outwitting new generations of young anglers.