Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast.
Speaker 2: The airways have to offer.
Speaker 1: All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop
Speaker 1: that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two
Speaker 1: the teacher. Brim fishing. Brim Fishing is an absolute hoot,
Speaker 1: and when you're done fishing, the best part is still ahead.
Speaker 1: When I'm shooting ducks, even after I've shot a limit,
Speaker 1: I always want one more group.
Speaker 2: To work in the decoys.
Speaker 1: Fifteen minutes after the gobbler stop flopping. I want to
Speaker 1: do it all over.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: A successful elk, deer or bear hunt, it's the same.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of sad it's over. I love it, and
Speaker 1: eating all those critters is a definite reward. But catching
Speaker 1: a mess of brim man, while it is as fun
Speaker 1: as a bush of basket full of puppies, catching brim
Speaker 1: and eating a mess of those jokers is my absolute
Speaker 1: favorite I'm gonna tell you how easy it is for
Speaker 1: you to enjoy this, and it's one of the best
Speaker 1: ways to spend time with your family and friends. And
Speaker 1: you get to eat. But first, I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: a story. Located in south central Cleveland County, Arkansas, and
Speaker 1: four miles north northeast of our house was Crane's Lake,
Speaker 1: a small ox bowl lake formed eons ago when the
Speaker 1: planets aligned and the heavens gave birth to the perfect
Speaker 1: blue gill brim Factory and the Canary Hole. Oh well,
Speaker 1: it was the perfect spot on the perfect lake. We
Speaker 1: named it after the small, brightly colored yellow birds that
Speaker 1: we called canaries. They lived all over that lake during
Speaker 1: the summer. Later I would learn their real name is
Speaker 1: prothonotary warbler. Ben Batten would call them Prodenaria citria. Ben's
Speaker 1: my friend and the assistant director of the Arkansas Game
Speaker 1: and Fish He's got a master's degree in animal smart ology.
Speaker 1: He's hander than a pocket on a shirt, and he's
Speaker 1: always grading my pronunciations of the Latin names for animals.
Speaker 1: Last week he scored me eight out of ten on
Speaker 1: the bullfrog. Anyway, these pretty little bright yellow birds with
Speaker 1: the dark wings spend their summers mostly in the eastern
Speaker 1: half of the United States, and the winter in Mexico, Cuba,
Speaker 1: and South America. If I had wings, believe I would too.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: That summer in nineteen seventy eight, there seemed like a
Speaker 1: gillion of them around the edge of the lake, concentrated
Speaker 1: particularly on the east side. It was within easy paddling
Speaker 1: distance of the dirt boat ramp where we'd lost our boat,
Speaker 1: and always the starting point of where we liked to fish.
Speaker 1: Our plan was to fill our brim basket with supper,
Speaker 1: armed with nothing more than a john boat, a couple
Speaker 1: of fly rods, and two buckets of crickets. Spring rains
Speaker 1: had caused an overflow of water from the Slain River
Speaker 1: that filled the slews and boughs beyond capacity. Now, when
Speaker 1: the water goes down, that rich fertile bottom land and
Speaker 1: the soil and the nutrients found within them always to
Speaker 1: make the summer lake fishing better by boosting the growth
Speaker 1: of all the critters and what they fed on within
Speaker 1: the confines of the lake, especially bluegills. I sat in
Speaker 1: the back of the boat and watched my dad paddle
Speaker 1: us across that lake, and the air was slapped full
Speaker 1: of those yellow birds and the sweet sounds that they
Speaker 1: were singing. As we fished down the east bank, the
Speaker 1: bites were few and far between until we reached the
Speaker 1: area that would be remembered and talked about for the
Speaker 1: rest of my father's life. There were four or five
Speaker 1: dead sweet gum trees that stood at the water's edge.
Speaker 1: The trees have been dead for several years, making some
Speaker 1: real good fish structure. The snags that were left standing
Speaker 1: had been the home of countless woodpeckers over the years,
Speaker 1: and the canaries had taken advantage of it and were
Speaker 1: nesting in every available hole. They were everywhere and buzzing
Speaker 1: all around us. Dad dropped his cricket near one of
Speaker 1: the tree tops and his cork disappeared immediately. He pulled
Speaker 1: him in, and we were surprised at how big he was.
Speaker 1: He tied his end of the boat, rebaited and caught
Speaker 1: another one before I could get my end tied. He
Speaker 1: pulled in his third fish before I finally got my
Speaker 1: hook in the water, and no ciner had the slack
Speaker 1: gone out of my line. I was taking the line
Speaker 1: back in and catching my own big blue gill. The
Speaker 1: canaries sang and flew around under our boat, and huge
Speaker 1: brim continued to bite. With every fish we pulled out
Speaker 1: of the water, another one would take its place. It
Speaker 1: was like they were fighting amongst themselves for a chance
Speaker 1: to eat crickets. Taking them off the hook and dropping
Speaker 1: them in the brim basket that hung over the side
Speaker 1: of the boat was repeated until fish would no longer
Speaker 1: fit in that basket. It was constant, and it didn't
Speaker 1: last an hour. All the brim we'd caught seemed to
Speaker 1: have been made from the same mold. They were the
Speaker 1: biggest dash that he'd ever seen, and it only took
Speaker 1: fifty five to fill that basket. Putting my thumb on
Speaker 1: his back, keeping that dorsal fin locked down in my
Speaker 1: fingers under his belly, I could barely hold one secure
Speaker 1: enough to take off the hook. That's how big they were.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many we could have caught that day,
Speaker 1: there's no telling, but when number fifty five hit and
Speaker 1: filled that basket, they were still biting as hard and
Speaker 1: fast as they had.
Speaker 2: When number one went in there.
Speaker 1: We went home clean fish froze b we wasn't going
Speaker 1: to eat that night, and had one more good supper, fish,
Speaker 1: fri tators, fresh onion, and hush pubbish man. I can
Speaker 1: taste it right now. The next day we went back
Speaker 1: to the Canary Hole, but it wasn't nearly as good
Speaker 1: as it was the first day.
Speaker 2: It never is.
Speaker 1: Sequels seldom surpassed, are even equal the original. It's hard
Speaker 1: to catch lightning in a bottle twice. And even though
Speaker 1: the original cast of Canary Hole, Brent and Buddy Reeves,
Speaker 1: had returned for a Canary Hole too, it just wasn't
Speaker 1: the same. Instead of filling the basket with fifty five,
Speaker 1: it took fifty six.
Speaker 2: And that's just how that happened.
Speaker 1: Now. I'd run into a few folks through the years
Speaker 1: that liked to fish, whole bunch of folks, I'd have
Speaker 1: to say, and we'd get to talking about what we
Speaker 1: like to fish for.
Speaker 2: And I like to fish for just about anything that swims.
Speaker 1: And that asked me what my favorite was, and I
Speaker 1: tell them brimfishing some but never had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: brim fish. And others were somewhat dismissive of it, like
Speaker 1: it was a waste of their time or beneath them.
Speaker 1: And I don't know that I'd let those folks borrow
Speaker 1: a drink of water. How could you look down on
Speaker 1: the greatest tasting fish that ever swum a swim? Name
Speaker 1: something that you like to eat, and give me the
Speaker 1: choice of that or fried brim, and I'm gonna pick
Speaker 1: brim every time.
Speaker 2: I could eat it every day.
Speaker 1: But before we eat them, let's talk a little more
Speaker 1: in depth by what we're fishing for. Bluegill, brim, green
Speaker 1: sunfish also known as rice paddy, slicks, red ear sunfish.
Speaker 1: That's the government brim. They didn't invent them, but they
Speaker 1: were preferred in the early stocking efforts around the South
Speaker 1: and earn that moniker. The last one is the brightly
Speaker 1: orange colored long eared sunfish known as the punkin seeds.
Speaker 1: They're all sunfish and in the sun charcoty family of fish.
Speaker 1: Locally we call them all brim. And our favorites that
Speaker 1: we target to catch and eat are blue gills and
Speaker 1: punkin seeds now red ears they grow the biggest, followed
Speaker 1: by blue gills and then the slicks, and in the
Speaker 1: punkin seeds. The punkin seeds they are the absolute fiercest eaters.
Speaker 1: They nearly always hit your bait like they're starving and
Speaker 1: pull way beyond what you'd think. I've always said that
Speaker 1: if they weigh a pound, they'd crawl out on the
Speaker 1: bank and take over the world. Get a little current
Speaker 1: in the river when you're catching them, and you'll think
Speaker 1: you're about to set some kind of record, And then
Speaker 1: you pull up a fish that you could lay in
Speaker 1: one hand and cover it up with the other. They're fighters,
Speaker 1: and they taste so good. Now during the early summer
Speaker 1: here in Arkansas, you'll find them bedding up to lay
Speaker 1: eggs in groups called brim beds or colonies. The male
Speaker 1: fish will go to the bottom and dig out a
Speaker 1: divid about the size of a fat hit pitching wedge.
Speaker 1: The female will swim by, checking out the new digs
Speaker 1: and hang around for a little light cording with love
Speaker 1: figuratively in the air and literally in the water. She'll
Speaker 1: drop off anywhere from twelve to sixty thousand eggs and vamoose,
Speaker 1: leaving the house and the young's for Pappy to look after.
Speaker 2: That have for ought to be ashamed.
Speaker 1: The good thing is all his single dad. Next door
Speaker 1: neighbors are doing the same thing, literally next door. The
Speaker 1: whole cul de sac is a literal donny brook a fisticuffs.
Speaker 1: That colony can host dozens of beds, and all the
Speaker 1: fathers are in town duking it out with anything and
Speaker 1: everything that tries to get in there and snatch the
Speaker 1: babies out of the crib. Now, that's when you find
Speaker 1: them bedding up and the bites are so aggressive. That's
Speaker 1: what will shake it down at the Canary Hole when
Speaker 1: me and Dad were stacking fish in that brim basket.
Speaker 1: Like cord wood, they don't cotton the trespassers and will
Speaker 1: square up with just about anything until they run it off,
Speaker 1: eat it, or eat eats them. I know of three
Speaker 1: ways to find them that are successful. First, let's narrow
Speaker 1: it down where we're gonna find our potential bed in areas.
Speaker 1: Go to the shep, usually near the edge of the bank,
Speaker 1: out to as much as twenty feet deep. My experience
Speaker 1: has found that anywhere from three to six feet is
Speaker 1: pretty normal. Now, I'll talk about the two old school
Speaker 1: methods that we've used over the years. The third one
Speaker 1: is a cool way to do it, and it will
Speaker 1: get you on the fish quicker, especially if you're fishing
Speaker 1: in an unfamiliar area or time is a limiting factor
Speaker 1: for your fishing trip. It's also more expensive by requiring
Speaker 1: some equipment that wasn't issued to you at birth. Old
Speaker 1: school way number one, use your eyes. Just fish along
Speaker 1: until you find them. If you come upon the spot
Speaker 1: and see that your cricket supply is going down add
Speaker 1: or near the same rate your basket is filling up,
Speaker 1: stop the boat for you have arrived. If you think
Speaker 1: back a few minutes to that Canary whole story, that's
Speaker 1: how we did it. We started fishing down the edge
Speaker 1: of the lake and weren't catching anything until all at
Speaker 1: once we started loading. The number two is to use
Speaker 1: your smeller, your probosis, your nose when conditions are optimal,
Speaker 1: like little to know when you can actually smell and
Speaker 1: pinpoint a brim bed. It's much harder when there's a breeze,
Speaker 1: but you'll immediately know that you're in the right area.
Speaker 1: If the wind's blowing, you'll just have to start drawing
Speaker 1: the crickets till you find them. The fragrance is aromatic, subtle,
Speaker 1: and it's not unpleasant at all. Some folks describe it
Speaker 1: as having the fragrance of a fresh cut watermelon. Now
Speaker 1: I can't argue against that. Description, but I can't say
Speaker 1: I never thought to describe it that way. It smells
Speaker 1: like we fished and to eat fish to me. My
Speaker 1: dad pointed it out to me several times when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, and I've never forgotten it. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things that if you ever get it cataloged
Speaker 1: in you'll cranium, you'll immediately recognize it, regardless of how
Speaker 1: long it is between encounters. It is there to stay.
Speaker 1: The number three is one that I've never done, but
Speaker 1: I've heard it about it and watch some real interesting
Speaker 1: videos on YouTube demonstrating the technique. Side image and sonar
Speaker 1: will give you a real time picture displayed on your
Speaker 1: depth finder that you can watch as you crew slowly
Speaker 1: along the bank looking for the neighborhood of brim beds.
Speaker 1: The bottom will be slick as a whistle, and then
Speaker 1: all at once you'll see a brim bed that looks
Speaker 1: like little craters on your screens showing you where they are.
Speaker 1: You can market it as a GPS point or float
Speaker 1: close enough to drop off a marker buoy. Then you
Speaker 1: need to back off a little bit and commence to
Speaker 1: send it in the crickets to see if any single
Speaker 1: dads are down there looking to run. Sometimes you can
Speaker 1: even see the fish gardening the nest. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Coves and protected areas of lakes and slow moving portions
Speaker 1: of rivers are good places to start looking for beds.
Speaker 1: The water temperature needs to be bumping close to seventy
Speaker 1: degrees for the fish to start bedding. And if you
Speaker 1: can add a full moon in that mix, I know
Speaker 1: you better send somebody to the store for the You
Speaker 1: what you're all about to load the boat? Okay, we
Speaker 1: know what we're after, We know where and how to
Speaker 1: find them. What were gonna catch them with? Now, if
Speaker 1: you listened last week, you heard me say how inexpensive
Speaker 1: it was to gig frogs. Well, catching the brim is
Speaker 1: no different. You can cut your own pole, catch your
Speaker 1: own bait, and fashion your own hooks from wire. Heck,
Speaker 1: you could even make your own fishing line from thread.
Speaker 1: You can catch brim from the bank or by waiting.
Speaker 1: You don't need a boat. You could turn this into
Speaker 1: an amazingly fun DIY project with the kids this summer,
Speaker 1: teaching them survival skills that are enjoyable, have them make
Speaker 1: their own fishing rig, catch one, and then show them
Speaker 1: how to cook it. They'd love it and it would
Speaker 1: get them eyeballs off the video screen. Brim are just
Speaker 1: about everywhere there's water, so accessibility can't be a reason
Speaker 1: not to go. You just heard me say that you
Speaker 1: don't need any money to do this, so what's stopping you?
Speaker 1: If you look hard enough, you can always find a
Speaker 1: reason not to do something, but brim fishing.
Speaker 2: Come on.
Speaker 1: Here's my setup and I have two one I use
Speaker 1: most of the time, and that's my fly rod. It's
Speaker 1: a nine foot five weight made for fly fishing. Ideally,
Speaker 1: a smaller three or four weight rod is better. They're
Speaker 1: more limber and you can get a lot of good
Speaker 1: action playing the fish after he's hooked. My setup has
Speaker 1: a real spoon with fly line that matches the weight
Speaker 1: of my rod. If you're building your own rig, just
Speaker 1: look at the weight listed on your rod and match
Speaker 1: it with the package of line that it's indicated for.
Speaker 1: It'll say on there, and believe it or not, it
Speaker 1: makes a difference. I like floating line, and on the
Speaker 1: end where my hook goes, I'll tie a leader line
Speaker 1: that's marked appropriate for my fly line and real and
Speaker 1: then add a short length to smaller line. Maybe two
Speaker 1: pound test, and that's called tippet. Maybe I don't know,
Speaker 1: three feet long, and that's where I'll tie my hook
Speaker 1: and place my spit shot. Now, for years, I use
Speaker 1: nothing but a small cork that had my leader threaded
Speaker 1: through a hole in the middle and held in place
Speaker 1: with a separate peg inserted in the same hole preventing
Speaker 1: the cork from moving up and down. There's lots of
Speaker 1: different styles of corks and bobbers, but they're all doing
Speaker 1: the same job of maintaining your bait at a constant
Speaker 1: depth and giving you a visual clue that your daily
Speaker 1: limit is about to be reduced in number by one
Speaker 1: more fish. I could do a whole podcast on different
Speaker 1: types and styles of corks and bobbers, plastic foam, porcupine quills,
Speaker 1: turkey feathers, There's all kinds of items that folks use. Also,
Speaker 1: I don't want you fly fishing purists to be left out,
Speaker 1: so I'll talk about strike indicators too. Well. Guess what,
Speaker 1: mister fancy pants fly fishermen. The difference between a cork
Speaker 1: and a strike indicator is the same difference between a
Speaker 1: fiddle and a island. It's the cat using it. However,
Speaker 1: I have a new favorite that I was recently introduced
Speaker 1: to by my bar grease render brother and fly fishing guide,
Speaker 1: josh Spielmaker. Y'all know josh it looks like he could
Speaker 1: do stunts for Yukon coornelias with that red beard and
Speaker 1: handlebar mustache so big it's got its own zip code.
Speaker 1: But Joshua and I were flyfishing for trout recently and
Speaker 1: he handed me an in line strike indicator. That's cork
Speaker 1: for the rest of us, made by the folks at
Speaker 1: Ouros Flyfishing. That's O r S Flyfishing. These folks are
Speaker 1: based out of Montana, and as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: they have created the world's most perfect cork. It's a
Speaker 1: two piece foam bobber that has a short threaded stud
Speaker 1: on one side and a threaded hole on the other.
Speaker 1: The stud is slotted, and as luck would have it,
Speaker 1: you just lay your line in that slot, put the
Speaker 1: two halves together and tighten the side with a threaded hole.
Speaker 1: Keep and you were lying straight, unkinked and held in
Speaker 1: place with tension. Need to change depths. Just loosen the
Speaker 1: whole side a bit and slide that unit to where
Speaker 1: you want it and retighten. I'm convinced, without a shadow
Speaker 1: of a doubt that if we hadn't already gone to
Speaker 1: the moon, the Oiro Strike the Indicator design team could
Speaker 1: get us there. Good job, folks, Now hooks. My dad
Speaker 1: liked a long shank number eight wire hook, and I
Speaker 1: do too. We fished around a lot of old tree
Speaker 1: tops and structure, and if you happened to snag a
Speaker 1: limb or something solid on the bottom, nine times out
Speaker 1: of ten you could pull that hook and it was
Speaker 1: straightened out enough to come loose. Then all you had
Speaker 1: to do was re bend it and keep on fishing.
Speaker 1: A stronger hook would dig in and you'd break your
Speaker 1: line trying to free it up, or require you to
Speaker 1: cut it off, losing your rigging. And while I was
Speaker 1: retying my dad to be catching fish and keeping score,
Speaker 1: you can't be in the game sitting on the bench.
Speaker 1: That long shank on the hook was easier to get
Speaker 1: a hold of and remove from a fish then a
Speaker 1: shorter one too. Now all you need is a small
Speaker 1: split shot, put it about two or three inches above
Speaker 1: the hook, and you're ready to get busy giving them
Speaker 1: brim the sore mouth. My other rig is an ultra
Speaker 1: light fishing rig with a spinning riel attached to a
Speaker 1: five foot rod. It's easy to rig and cast accurately,
Speaker 1: and it's fun to rill and fight those clowns to
Speaker 1: the boat. Some folks will go with a jig pole.
Speaker 1: It's up to nine feet. It's just whatever you want.
Speaker 1: The advantage of being able to cast into a brim
Speaker 1: bed instead of setting over it, especially if the fish
Speaker 1: or shallow, will keep your boat further away from where
Speaker 1: you're fishing, so you're not as likely to spook to
Speaker 1: fish off. Now, the last method is the tried and
Speaker 1: true cane pole. It's probably the image that most folks
Speaker 1: have when brim fishing is mentioned. And I could build
Speaker 1: a house and a good sized barn from all the
Speaker 1: cane poles I made and fished with growing up. A
Speaker 1: fella could use the tube before if that's all he had.
Speaker 1: For that matter, you don't even need a rod, just
Speaker 1: chunk of line with a baited hook out amongst them,
Speaker 1: and well rope their little fannies in when they get
Speaker 1: the chomping on your bait. It's so easy to catch them.
Speaker 1: I wonder sometimes how we didn't catch them all, because
Speaker 1: we sure tried. Now, we got a rod rigged up
Speaker 1: and we were ready to fish except for one thing.
Speaker 1: We need bait. You can use artificial or natural. Artificial
Speaker 1: baits include brim flies, jigs, beetlespins, rooster tails, man. The
Speaker 1: list just goes on and on. They'll bite anything they
Speaker 1: think they can get the jaws around, even more so
Speaker 1: if it's trespassing in their bed during the spawn. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: don't forget about gummy bears. My son was six years
Speaker 1: old and him and my dad were sitting on the
Speaker 1: pond bank fishing one evening with a few crickets that
Speaker 1: was left over and eating gummy bears. He didn't take
Speaker 1: them long to run out of crickets, but Hunter wasn't
Speaker 1: ready to quit fishing, so he handed as grandpa gummy
Speaker 1: bear and sit here, Paul put this on the hook.
Speaker 1: Being a good grandpa. My dad did what Hunter asked,
Speaker 1: and they caught fish with gummy bears until they were gone.
Speaker 1: Dad said he didn't know who ate more of them,
Speaker 1: the brim or the boy. Bait to taste good to
Speaker 1: the fisherman too, well, that's a bonus. A few years later,
Speaker 1: that boy and I were fishing on the White River,
Speaker 1: with a guide. We were floating with the current for
Speaker 1: a trout, using cooked shrimp for bait that the guide
Speaker 1: had brought. And after a little bit, the guide gets
Speaker 1: to grumbling and digging around in the boat looking for
Speaker 1: that second bag of boill trimp, and he can't find it.
Speaker 1: I started helping him look under boat seats, in the
Speaker 1: live well, behind the tackle boxes, everywhere, no luck. Finally
Speaker 1: I told Hunter look under his seat and see if
Speaker 1: that shrimp was there. Man, he looked at me like
Speaker 1: he'd just been sentenced to life in front of a
Speaker 1: B B gun fire squad. When he stood up, the
Speaker 1: missing bag of bull trimp was located, and it was empty,
Speaker 1: but natural bait. That's my favorite growing up here. It
Speaker 1: was worms, crickets. Some folks would raise the worms in
Speaker 1: old chest type freezers or a junked out ice box
Speaker 1: laid on inside. My wife and kids, and probably most
Speaker 1: of humanity would call that refrigerator. Anyway, You fill it
Speaker 1: with dirt and meal scraps and cut a double handful
Speaker 1: of worms loose in there, and they'll do their thing
Speaker 1: making more bait. Me.
Speaker 2: I prefer crickets.
Speaker 1: They're less messy than worms, and boil those brim will
Speaker 1: wear them out. Now, we'd stop by the bait shop
Speaker 1: and get a couple tubes of crickets, that's a hundred
Speaker 1: crickets each, and.
Speaker 2: Hit the lake of the river.
Speaker 1: There's a million ways to put a cricket on a hook,
Speaker 1: but there's only one right way. Catch one cricket out
Speaker 1: of the bucket and looking at his back, job the
Speaker 1: point of that hook under his shirt collar. That's his thorax,
Speaker 1: which is right below his head, and run it through
Speaker 1: his body that's his abdomen, and have the point just
Speaker 1: barely poking out of his exhaust pipe. You know what
Speaker 1: that is. It's important that you only bring one cricket
Speaker 1: out of the bucket at a time because he can
Speaker 1: get dangerous, dangerous. Check this out. Dad and I were
Speaker 1: on Clean River one afternoon, after fishing most of the day,
Speaker 1: soaking crickets till they plumb fell off the hook with
Speaker 1: very few bites. We were fishing for our supper or
Speaker 1: we'd already quit. We were running low on bait, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden we started smashing the brim. Those
Speaker 1: big fat rascals, squirters we called them, you know, big
Speaker 1: blue gills that pee when you pull them up out
Speaker 1: of the water. You know why they pee a stream
Speaker 1: when you take a hold of them.
Speaker 2: Well, me neither.
Speaker 1: And I asked my friendly neighborhood master's degree of Animal
Speaker 1: smart Ology Assistant Director Ben Batten, and even he didn't know.
Speaker 1: Brim Pin and stone ends two of life's greatest mysteries. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back to the fishing. It was like they'd flipped a switch.
Speaker 1: They started biting like crazy. So with only a few
Speaker 1: crickets each, we had to make every one of them count.
Speaker 1: If one got out of the bucket while you were
Speaker 1: grabbing another, you had to catch the loose one and
Speaker 1: dicking back in the bucket and then baite your hook. Now,
Speaker 1: my dad was in a cricket and fish catching frenzy
Speaker 1: when he accidentally grabbed two out of the bucket. He
Speaker 1: was like a wild man in front of the boat,
Speaker 1: trying to run the hand steer, troll the motor, get
Speaker 1: his hook baited and back in the water. I watched
Speaker 1: him stick that extra cricket he'd caught in the corner
Speaker 1: of his mouth, holding it gently but firmly like a
Speaker 1: mule wood eating a cactus, and at the same time
Speaker 1: bait his hook and make a perfect roll, cast between
Speaker 1: two cypress trees and immediately catch a fish. It was
Speaker 1: a moment in time that stood still. When he set
Speaker 1: the hook, he slowly turned and looked at me one
Speaker 1: eyebrow raised and I know it all smirk on his face,
Speaker 1: all the while holding that cricket in the corner of
Speaker 1: his mouth like Clintie's woodheld a cigar. One tick of
Speaker 1: the clock later and he was cussing and spitting the
Speaker 1: cricket out, trying to get his fish in the boat,
Speaker 1: and wiping blood off his lip where that cricket had bit.
Speaker 2: A hole in it.
Speaker 1: Try this at home, kids, you'll mess around and get
Speaker 1: a hole in your lip and.
Speaker 2: A boat ram named after you. The only thing left
Speaker 2: to do is to clean them and cook them.
Speaker 1: Lay one of them fat rascals out on a table,
Speaker 1: grab yourself a tablespoon and get the scraping against the grain,
Speaker 1: pulling all those scales off. Your fishing partner can get
Speaker 1: his pocket knife and start gutting and taking the heads
Speaker 1: off while you scrape. Be sure you get them all,
Speaker 1: because nothing looks nastier than a cooked fish with scales
Speaker 1: left on it. Somebody's gonna say, oh, just flay them,
Speaker 1: and when they do, I'm gonna say, oh, they ought
Speaker 1: to be in jail. Now, shalt not deprive brint of
Speaker 1: the fried brim tail. What you should do is have
Speaker 1: the pocket knife man making a cut along each side
Speaker 1: of that dorsal fin and removing it before you cook it.
Speaker 1: Once you get it out of the hot grease and
Speaker 1: it gets cool enough to chow down on. That's always
Speaker 1: when I first bite brim backstrap.
Speaker 2: You can't beat it.
Speaker 1: And we talked about how to cook fish back on
Speaker 1: the Catching Catfish with Troutlines episode, and I shared our
Speaker 1: family recipe with the meal that we mix up. Go
Speaker 1: back and give it a listen if you want to
Speaker 1: use that one. But there's lots of premade mixes or
Speaker 1: just about any grocery store to have one, and they're
Speaker 1: good too. But really all you need is yellow corn meal,
Speaker 1: hot grease and salt and pepper. Those fish they got
Speaker 1: a flavor of their own that can't be beat. The
Speaker 1: main thing is just get out and do it. Grab
Speaker 1: your young's or your neighbors, some old folks. Get them involved,
Speaker 1: whether it's catching them or just eating them. Catching and
Speaker 1: preparing your food is a joy and It's multiplied when
Speaker 1: you share it, just like sharing these stories. I can't
Speaker 1: tell y'all how appreciative I am from all the encouraging
Speaker 1: messages and reviews we've been getting. You folks, just keep
Speaker 1: sharing it and posting those reviews, and maybe someone that
Speaker 1: wouldn't have normally across it, we'll see it and they
Speaker 1: can enjoy it too. You ain't got to be from
Speaker 1: the country to bee country. This is Brent Reeves signing
Speaker 1: all y'all be careful