[Granville-Hough] 9 Jan 2009 - Fishing

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:15:53 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: 9 Jan 2009 - Fishing

Fishing.

As I grew up on or near the ridgeline between Ocohay Creek and Okatomy 
Creek drainage systems, I did not get to learn to fish. The best I can 
say is that I had a few fishing experiences. However, fishing was a 
family tradition in my fatherÆs family. The foods most frequently 
mentioned were fish, eels, and muscles (fresh water oysters). It seems 
that the Hough and Miller families did not eat turtle, and I do not know 
why.
The general indication is that my grandmother Nora (Miller) (Keyes) 
Hough grew up on Cohay Creek and and SullivanÆs Hollow Creek and 
considered them much like we would consider a refrigerator today. If you 
ran out of meat from the smokehouse, you went down to the creek and 
caught a mess of fish for supper. She retained this habit when she lived 
later in her life on Little Cohay (or Acahay).
One thing you have to visualize is what the creeks and rivers were like 
before the timber was cut and the uplands began to erode into the lower 
land. The creeks were deep and clear and full of fish. The whole 
ecological community centered on these creeks, and the old Indian 
hunting and fishing trails followed them closely. The longleaf pines on 
the hilly plains modified the rainfall, and the mat of pine needles held 
down any soil erosion. Even after the hills were burned in late winter 
to encourage brush growth for browsers, there was not much muddy water. 
I never saw this condition, but it was the norm when my parents were 
born, and their parents before them.
One of my father, Elisha HoughÆs, stories is about his encounter with a 
snapping turtle as large as a big dishpan or small washtub. Grandma Nora 
Hough had sent him down to the creek to catch some fresh fish for 
supper. He was 11 or 12 years old and only had one fishhook. He got to 
his customary fishing place near a bridge crossing and cast in the 
fishing line with his hook, and it was immediately grabbed; but he could 
not pull it out, and it was too deep to see what had it. He had gotten 
into this kind of predicament before, and he had always taken off his 
clothes and dived down to retrieve his hook, generally snagged on some 
kind of debris on the bottom of the fishing hole. Some men were working 
on the nearby bridge and one saw him undressing and came over to see 
what he was doing. He explained and the man said, ôNo, No, Sonny, you 
should not do that. Just wait for me. I will help you.ö
The man looked for and found a sapling which he cut and made into a long 
probing pole. He then began to probe the bottom and dislodged an angry 
snapping turtle, which came to the surface, biting the pole and 
everything in sight. With the fishing line, they were able to drag the 
turtle to the edge of the creek, cut off his head, and retrieve the 
fishhook. My father fully believed that, had he dived to the bottom, the 
snapping turtle would have grabbed and held him until he drowned. This 
was the end of the story, but my father said he never again dived to the 
bottom of the creek to retrieve a fishing hook. It would have been my 
opportunity to ask: ôWho got to eat the snapping turtle?ö However, I did 
not know then that you could eat turtles.
My father longed for an occasional fish dinner all his life, and he 
would go back to fish on Cohay every few years. After I got lost with 
our dog Sharp while he was gone on one such trip, he did not go as 
often. If he were in Magee and saw a fresh red snapper just in from the 
Gulf Coast, he would buy it; and that is how we all grew to love fish. 
It was a rare treat.
My next older brother, Rudolph, learned to fish and followed Clear Creek 
down two or three miles from where it headed in a spring on our 
property. One time he caught a mud cat (bottom-dwelling catfish), and 
another time he found some muscles (fresh water oysters). My second 
oldest brother, Dueward, liked the idea of fishing, and I was able to go 
on two such trips with him. On the first, we took a wagon and spent the 
night on Cohay Creek, cooking our supper on a regular campfire. This was 
a memorable trip because we stopped when we crossed Hatchitapaloo Creek 
and fished the bar-pits along the road. (a barpit or borrow-pit is where 
you got the earth for building up the roadbed, and you always found them 
along the roads through the creek bottoms. When the creeks overflowed 
after heavy rains, the barpits captured fish which were left stranded 
when the waters went down.) It was in such a barpit that I caught my 
first fish, indeed, it was the first fish caught on the trip. We went on 
in high spirits to the big Creek of Cohay where we spent the night. We 
did not catch much fish, but we did furnish lots of blood to the 
mosquitoes.
The next fishing trip was to Okatomy Creek in Simpson County. We went 
with our tenants, Wiley Hester, and his sons, Lamar and Marzene. We went 
down to the railroad at Low, then walked west four miles to Okatomy 
Creek. This was one Friday afternoon. We got to the creek, did some 
fishing until dusk, then we set our lines for the night. We were not 
alone. This was during the early Depression, and other parties were also 
seriously fishing for food. It also began to rain, not just a little 
rain, but a downpour. The adults checked our lines during the night 
because we were afraid they would be robbed if we waited until morning. 
People were that desperate. But it continued to rain, rain, and rain. We 
kids had our backs up against a big gum tree, while we tried to keep a 
fire going with wet wood. We could hear and see the creek nearly out of 
its banks. We recovered what lines we could and headed out.
This was on Saturday when my father always went to town to get supplies. 
When he got to Okatomy Bridge on Highway 28, he could see that the Creek 
was out of its banks. In fact, the rushing water was threatening the 
bridge foundations. He could only hope that we had sense enough to leave 
the creek and head for higher ground. At daylight, we had done just that 
and we were holding hands and waist deep in water when we finally got to 
the higher ground of the railroad tracks. Then we had a cold and soggy 
four mile walk home on the railroad.
I did not ask or suggest that we go fishing again on the old creeks in 
Mississippi. My next fishing experience was nearly thirty years later at 
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and it was with my son David. It is his story 
to tell.
However, to this day, I love to eat fish of all kinds. IÆm just willing 
to let someone else go catch them.
(note: I was later in high school with Lamar and Marzene Hester. They 
joined the Marines and were in early WWII battles on Pacific islands. 
During a Japanese counter-attack, Marzene was bayoneted by a Japanese 
soldier who left him for dead. I have been told Marzene survived to get 
back home where he died from his wounds a year or two later.) 

Fishing, 19 Jul 2005.