Post thirteen: Katie's string of catfish turns the heads of the big time fishermen

     I'm going to interrupt my story again. Sometimes, when a good story comes around, you just naturally gotta tell it while its fresh on your mind.
     My Dad started grooming me to take over as the family fresh meat provider when I was very young. I took the place of my older brother Harold when he went off to college. Even salt pork, as bad as it was, didn't last well into the warm weather, and if the family had no fresh wild meat provider, there was no meat to eat. Period.
     My Dad never fished anymore, he was too busy working. Every hour of every day except Sunday. But he gave me the time and means to wander the creek and river and figure it out by myself. And some little tricks are just good enough to be passed down through the generations of hill folk, and those are kept in the family.
     A couple of days ago, I took my 14 year old niece Katie catfishing. She was not raised a hillbilly, but she woulda' made a good un'. She loves to fish, and bagged her full limit of deer last year.
     We went down to a very busy boat ramp on DeGray lake, just before dark, with dozens of big, fancy fishing boats loading and unloading. Now with all the water worked up from all the boats, one would have thought that this was the last place to catch catfish. However, as the water began to settle  just a little after dark, Katie used her skill and a little hillbilly trick I knew, to start just dragging them in. Didn't hurt for Katie to be privy to the trick, she was family. She was catching them so fast, I just quit fishing and put her fish on the stringer and keeping a baited rod ready. After 40 minutes or so, she trimmed her string down to the five biggest, and we were ready to go home. Five or six large boats had just loaded up to go home, and the men were just standing around talking.  Katie drug her string of cats, (they were dragging the ground) by those fishermen, and you shoulda' seen the eyes bug out! One man managed to stammer, "We been fishing in the wrong place!!"
     Word to the wise - never take on a hungry hillbilly in a catfishing derby. Fishing for sport is one thing, but meat fishing to keep a family fed is quite another!