hot summer days

when the heat gets to the point of not being able to stand it and the rain seems like it will never come its time to roll up your pants take off your shoes and head to the closest swamp. When i was about 12 years old me and two buddies of mine were in the swamp catching anything that was alive. There wasnt much water anywhere so fishing was out of the question. As we walked knee deep in the pulling mud telling stories of NO FACE the swamp legend we seen an old black man walking with a trashcan. We were about a mile into the swamp so we were really scared. We hide and watched him for at least an hour. Every few steps he would push the can into the mud, look into it, reach in and begin to throw fish onto the mud. we were astonished and could not figure it out. we finally had enough and approached the master fisherman cautiously. He immediately said "look right there" pointing to the ground ahead of us. " there is a big un" all i could see was a beer bottle on its side half buried in the mud. he said "be real quit" he walked up to the bottle put both hands together pushing them into the mud and with a upward sweeping motion he threw a 5 pound mudfish onto the top of the mud. I was hooked on mud fishing after that. He explained in detail about how finding small wet areas held many mud fish. He said all you need is an old trashcan wit da bottom cut out. Push that can in da mud and listen for the fish hitting the sides... he warned us that if the sound is a tink instead of a thud it must be a snake......I never saw that old swamp man again and never got his name but I went back summer after summer and used his can he left there. We never were able to catch as many fish as we watched him catch but those were the summers that i will never forget.

Good story.

My mother told me that back in the Depression her father would take the kids out to the railroad bar pits in the heat of the summer when the water was down very low. My grandfather would put on rubber boots and go stomping through the water stirring up the mud as much as possible. The mud cloud clogged the small bream's gills and they would come to the surface gasping and the kids would scoop them up. Years later I was reading a French explorer's account of colonial Louisiana and he said the Indians did the very same thing.

nice story toby

Thanks for the story tbone. If we don't keep these stories alive they will fade away during this upcoming generation. Tell stories and tell them often...

Thanks 20 watt

Good read.:) The things a boy will do to have some fun.:D