Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
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 the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I
Speaker 1: think I got a thing or two and teach you
Speaker 1: net fishing. Here we go again. Just when you thought
Speaker 1: it was safe enough to get back in the water,
Speaker 1: here come the Reeves brothers with another round of net fishing.
Speaker 1: This one isn't a sequel, how too. Episode This one
Speaker 1: is going to be more of a wake up grandpa
Speaker 1: and go get the neighbors because y'all ain't gonna believe
Speaker 1: what we did episode. I promise you we were more
Speaker 1: surprised than the fish we caught. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you all about it, but first I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you a story. Like a lot of my stories, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be surprised that this one is about my
Speaker 1: brother Tim and me. It's a short one, but relevant.
Speaker 1: Just the same now. I've been kind of sitting on
Speaker 1: it since the beginning of this country life podcast. It
Speaker 1: doesn't really fit a narrative or go along with any
Speaker 1: podcast subject matter other than maybe if I did an
Speaker 1: episode dedicated completely to dumb things we have done. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this happened over thirty years ago, and at the time
Speaker 1: I lived a mile and a half from where my
Speaker 1: brother still lives. We did everything together all the time.
Speaker 1: He was either at my house or I was at
Speaker 1: his house, or we were together at the country store
Speaker 1: listening to the old folks talk, or down to Dad's
Speaker 1: house or over at his in law's house, who looked
Speaker 1: at me as if I was just an extra family member.
Speaker 1: We were all close. None of that has anything to
Speaker 1: do with this story other than me illustrating the fact
Speaker 1: that we lived close together, and by lived close together,
Speaker 1: I mean in totality. If we weren't physically together, we
Speaker 1: passed each other's house, or we ran into each other
Speaker 1: at the country store, or met each other on the road. Now,
Speaker 1: meeting each other on the road one afternoon would most
Speaker 1: times have us playing an impromptu game of chicken by
Speaker 1: dodging at the other's vehicle like we were going to
Speaker 1: run them off the road. I do not recommend this,
Speaker 1: nor do either of us still participate in this tomfoolery. Now.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of you right now are fast
Speaker 1: forwarding to the punchline and thinking to yourself, those idiots
Speaker 1: did that at the same time and wrecked their trucks. Well,
Speaker 1: you'd be wrong. We did something dumb, not stupid, not really.
Speaker 1: Well maybe, but it wasn't our finest hour, to be sure.
Speaker 1: And this incident did involve both of our trucks, but
Speaker 1: no damage to either vehicle was done, none whatsoever, and
Speaker 1: we both maintained complete control of everything except our senses.
Speaker 1: Late one afternoon, I pulled onto the highway from a
Speaker 1: Gravel County road, headed east to the store. Tim is
Speaker 1: three quarters of a mile further away, and he pulled
Speaker 1: onto the highway from his in laws drive headed west.
Speaker 1: It was like synchronized swimming. I felt quite sure that
Speaker 1: he thought to himself as he saw me coming, something
Speaker 1: similar to what I was thinking. Ah, there comes my brother.
Speaker 1: We need to do something cool. Well. The evening sun
Speaker 1: was lighting up the interior of his truck as we
Speaker 1: got closer, and I saw him when he flipped down
Speaker 1: the sun visor, so he could see me getting closer.
Speaker 1: My sister in law barbagings like the jewel she is
Speaker 1: sitting right beside him. She would play a supporting role
Speaker 1: as the unwitting witness, while her husband and I starred
Speaker 1: as the dim witted brothers. Tim's truck slowly crept toward
Speaker 1: the center line. I did the same. My memory is
Speaker 1: to who did it first. As a little foggy, but
Speaker 1: almost simultaneously, we each stuck our hands out the window
Speaker 1: to give the other the coolest high five in recorded history.
Speaker 1: I looked at my speedometer. I was going thirty five
Speaker 1: miles an hour. Tim appeared to be doing a similar rate.
Speaker 1: Ever so slightly we inched closer to the center line.
Speaker 1: I could see them both playing as day. Tim arms
Speaker 1: stretched out as far as it would go, grinning like
Speaker 1: a mute lead, and saw briars and barbacanes, smiling, face
Speaker 1: fading quickly into an expression of I married an idiot
Speaker 1: and I got his idiot brother too. Now this was
Speaker 1: going to be epic in my mind. I quickly calculated
Speaker 1: that neither of us could get our trucks any closer
Speaker 1: to the center line without trading a little paint and
Speaker 1: this would have to do. And in the time it
Speaker 1: has taken me to tell this story, the actual incident
Speaker 1: had already taken place. Had I had this much time
Speaker 1: to really think about it, I felt quite sure that
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have done it. At the time, it seemed
Speaker 1: like such a good idea. Nothing short of divine interventions
Speaker 1: saved both our arms that day. As we passed each
Speaker 1: other at the combined speed of at least seventy miles
Speaker 1: an hour, only the very tiniest bit of the tips
Speaker 1: of our middle fingers on each of our left hands touched.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't have been enough contact to light a kitchen
Speaker 1: match had you used the same contact across sandpaper. It's
Speaker 1: a good thing it wasn't any more than that, because
Speaker 1: it felt like I had touched the surface of the
Speaker 1: sun and been struck by lightning all at the same time.
Speaker 1: I looked back in the side mirror as I shook
Speaker 1: my hand trying to put the flames out that had
Speaker 1: ignited upon contact, and Tim was doing the same. We
Speaker 1: talked on the phone later that night about how thankful
Speaker 1: we were for failing that stunt. We've talked about it
Speaker 1: ever since, especially when we see something we judge as
Speaker 1: being egregiously dumb, then we say, ah, yes, but as
Speaker 1: that is done, it's attempting a high five at seventy
Speaker 1: miles an hour him to find out a few things,
Speaker 1: ever are. And that's just how that happened. Five episodes ago,
Speaker 1: around podcast number one ninety three, I talked about fishing
Speaker 1: with nets and how my brother Tim and I were
Speaker 1: going to fish his wire ones in the Arkansas River.
Speaker 1: Talked about my friend Jerry Bowser down in Louisiana that
Speaker 1: told us how to fish the hoop nets that I have.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you an update on the hoop
Speaker 1: nets in a minute, but right now I want to
Speaker 1: talk about those wire nets some more. We'd fished them
Speaker 1: for a few days last year on the same section
Speaker 1: of the river. One of them we fished in the
Speaker 1: same spot as last year. A year ago. We had
Speaker 1: maybe a dozen fish total out of all three nets.
Speaker 1: The river came on a big rise and we postponed
Speaker 1: setting the nets. And this was before I had retired
Speaker 1: from my regular job, and we wound up not going
Speaker 1: back at all until a couple of weeks ago. Work
Speaker 1: had gotten in the way again. Man I hated when
Speaker 1: that happened. It's happened often in my life, and I'll
Speaker 1: never be able to forgive work for how it has
Speaker 1: treated me all these years. So I quit last October.
Speaker 1: I retired and all my other pursuits, putting net fishing
Speaker 1: on the back burner until recently. But we talked about
Speaker 1: it all through the winter, me and Tim. I was
Speaker 1: watching YouTube videos and sending them to him and he
Speaker 1: was doing the same. The videos were filmed by another
Speaker 1: fellow down in Louisiana. But this, when it turns out,
Speaker 1: was a whole lot closer to Arkansas than my old pile.
Speaker 1: Jerry Bradley Smith lives not far south of the Arkansas
Speaker 1: Louisiana line and fishes a lot on the Washingtaw River. Now.
Speaker 1: I used to be partners in the camp down there
Speaker 1: on the Washtaw. It was located in Union County, in
Speaker 1: the small community of Felsenthal. Now some of the some
Speaker 1: of my coworkers at the Sheriff's office and I had
Speaker 1: it and we had a lot of fun hunting fishing
Speaker 1: down there. But Bradley Smith was the first I'd ever
Speaker 1: seen fishing the wire nets. Their fiddler nets, named for
Speaker 1: the smaller catfish that they target, and the only difference
Speaker 1: between them and a hoop net is the net webbing
Speaker 1: is held in place by a four foot section of
Speaker 1: concrete reinforcement wire rolled in to a tube with a
Speaker 1: diameter of eighteen inches and can literally be dropped in
Speaker 1: the water and fish without any type of anchor having
Speaker 1: to tie it off on the other end. Otherwise it
Speaker 1: would be held open by four evenly spaced fiberglass hoops
Speaker 1: with a tail rope and a head rope that would
Speaker 1: each have to be weighted and stretched tight to keep
Speaker 1: the hoops up right so the fish could swim inside. Now,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to just drop a wire net over
Speaker 1: the side of the boat without securing it to an
Speaker 1: anchor or tying it off to something in current. There's
Speaker 1: no tilling where would end up, but back in your
Speaker 1: boat would probably be the last place. Bradley produces some
Speaker 1: good YouTube content on his channel God's Country Hunting and Fishing.
Speaker 1: He goes into a lot of detail on how he
Speaker 1: catches fish, where he likes to set his nets, and
Speaker 1: what type of nets he fishes, how to repair damage nets,
Speaker 1: and the thing I like most is how to make
Speaker 1: one from scratch. I find it so fascinating that you
Speaker 1: can take a roll of twine, a net needle, and
Speaker 1: what Bradley calls a netting board, which is a thin
Speaker 1: piece of wood about the size of a plated card
Speaker 1: that's used as a measuring guide for the spacing of
Speaker 1: the knots in the mesh that form the net. Different
Speaker 1: sized mesh is used for different sized fish. Now I
Speaker 1: add a few hoops to the mix, some weights, rope,
Speaker 1: or a roll of wire, and you got a fish
Speaker 1: catching machine that runs twenty four to seven and can
Speaker 1: catch more fish than you'll want to clean if you're
Speaker 1: not careful. Now, making one like Bradley does from start
Speaker 1: to finish is next on my net fishing to do list. Well,
Speaker 1: that and actually putting the two hoop nets I have
Speaker 1: now in the water. The only reason they're not soaking
Speaker 1: in the tepid flow of the Arkansas River right now
Speaker 1: is the upcoming Turkey season. It has me traveling in
Speaker 1: and out of surrounding the nearby states for the next
Speaker 1: few weeks. I know that's a good problem to have.
Speaker 1: I ain't complaining, but I can't wait to get to
Speaker 1: fishings because once Turkey season is done, I'm a commercial fisherman.
Speaker 1: I bought my license this week and have the tags
Speaker 1: for both of my hoop nets and some for the
Speaker 1: three wire nets. I'm fixing the buy before anyone thinks
Speaker 1: that I've done something illegal. That saw the videos of
Speaker 1: me and my brother Tim fishing before I bought this license.
Speaker 1: You need to understand how this works. You can purchase
Speaker 1: a helper's license when you purchase your commercial fishing license,
Speaker 1: and this allows any resident of Arkansas with a valid
Speaker 1: fishing license to assist the commercial fishing license holder when
Speaker 1: running the nets. That's what I and Tim were doing.
Speaker 1: He has the commercial license and I was his helper.
Speaker 1: As evidenced in the answer video. Someone commented that Brin
Speaker 1: is pulling the nets and working while Tim sits comfortably
Speaker 1: in the back of the boat. Well, I may be
Speaker 1: an experience the Mississippi River Expedition boat captain and cub
Speaker 1: pilot instructor, but I'm still the little brother. Where was
Speaker 1: I going with this? Oh? Yeah, the wire nets Tim
Speaker 1: and I set out on the day a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago that we set them out. We had only
Speaker 1: one spotted mine before we got to the river that day.
Speaker 1: That was the place where we caught the most fish
Speaker 1: last year, all nine of them. We had a total
Speaker 1: of twelve to fifteen fish that day, counting a ten
Speaker 1: pound grinnel we had in one of our nets. It's
Speaker 1: also called a bowfend, and I read an article on
Speaker 1: Arkansas Wild dot com that described it as, and I
Speaker 1: quote the author, a prehistoric, bone headed, air breathing, ealy finned,
Speaker 1: monster fanged fossil fish dating back to the Jurassic period
Speaker 1: that fishermen loved to hate. That was eloquently put Mark Spitzer.
Speaker 1: But water conditions were similar to last year, so we
Speaker 1: were hoping to at least equal last year's catch of
Speaker 1: a dozen plus fish after a week's soaking with the nuts.
Speaker 1: All week, when Tim and I would talk on the phone,
Speaker 1: the first question after Hello would be what are you doing?
Speaker 1: The response from the other would be, I'm catching fish?
Speaker 1: What are you doing? The response was always me too. Now,
Speaker 1: little did we know that that's exactly what we were
Speaker 1: doing on the day. We said, and we ran into
Speaker 1: a friend of ours that is a real commercial fisherman. Now,
Speaker 1: he fishes every day, and I don't mean five days
Speaker 1: a week, every day, as in seven days a week.
Speaker 1: When you're fishing to pay your light bill. The incentive
Speaker 1: is real and far beyond the romanticism of scooping up
Speaker 1: a mess of fish from the river to fill your
Speaker 1: freezer and feed your friends and family. It gets to
Speaker 1: be a whole lot of light work. Tim and I
Speaker 1: had set one net when we ran into him. He
Speaker 1: pulled up beside us, and we talked about the water
Speaker 1: conditions and everything else. While our friend sat in his boat,
Speaker 1: fish piled up around him like sand bags, and he
Speaker 1: was in a fox hole on guard duty. He gave
Speaker 1: me a buffalo fish before he left, like a casino
Speaker 1: gambler flips a chip to the dealer at the blackjack table.
Speaker 1: I thanked him, and I jokingly told him, since he'd
Speaker 1: been so nice in giving me that fish, that any
Speaker 1: time he wasn't around, I'd run his nets for him
Speaker 1: and keep all the fish. He didn't think it was
Speaker 1: nearly as funny as Tim did. Anyway, We went on
Speaker 1: about our business and set the other two of Tim's nets.
Speaker 1: We each picked out a spot, loaded him with bait,
Speaker 1: secured him with a rope and a weight, and I
Speaker 1: dropped him over the side. In nineteen eighty one, Tom
Speaker 1: Petty released a song about net fishing on the Arkansas River.
Speaker 1: Now few people know that when Tom and the Heartbreakers
Speaker 1: weren't touring, that they were secretly commercial fishermen. How am
Speaker 1: I the only one to know this? And why did
Speaker 1: it take me forty three years to crack the case?
Speaker 1: Because I started net fishing and I listened to the
Speaker 1: words of songs. I get what they're really trying to say.
Speaker 1: That song was playing on the radio the other day
Speaker 1: coming back from the river. Just listen to his song,
Speaker 1: the Waiting. If that ain't a song about fishing nets,
Speaker 1: I don't know what is. Anyway. Me and Tim set
Speaker 1: our nets and waited. See see what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: The days drug by, And it's a good thing we
Speaker 1: each live an hour away from the boat ramp. Or
Speaker 1: the temptation to check them early may have been too
Speaker 1: much to handle. Jerry said, y'all got to let them
Speaker 1: soak and have time to catch. Tim and I vowed
Speaker 1: not to check them for seven days. We put them
Speaker 1: out on a Thursday and we would check them the
Speaker 1: Thursday of the following week. On the next Tuesday, we
Speaker 1: were back in the boat down the ramp to check them.
Speaker 1: We were two days earlier than we'd planned. Even though
Speaker 1: it was a struggle. I was down for holding out
Speaker 1: the last two days. But Tim talked to Jerry the
Speaker 1: night before and he said, man, if y'all are catching fish,
Speaker 1: you might need to check them tomorrow. You might be
Speaker 1: catching more than you want to skin. Now, going by
Speaker 1: last year's catch, I didn't have a lot of hope,
Speaker 1: but my faith was strong. Also. I didn't think there
Speaker 1: was such a thing as catching more fish than you
Speaker 1: want to skin. That's like bawling more crawfish than you
Speaker 1: want to eat, or tree or more coons than you
Speaker 1: want to look at. That's pure silliness. But we rolled
Speaker 1: into spot number one hopeful but not over confident. Tim
Speaker 1: had his hand on the tiller as we coasted up
Speaker 1: to the place where we'd caught the most fish last
Speaker 1: year and predicted out loud, fifteen fish to God and
Speaker 1: everybody within earshot to be the count. In the first net.
Speaker 1: It was a second or third pull with the net drag.
Speaker 1: When I hung the net and pulled it up to
Speaker 1: the boat, it didn't feel heavy, it didn't feel like anything.
Speaker 1: Then as I pulled the end of the net first,
Speaker 1: they're out above the surface the water began to swirl,
Speaker 1: and I knew we had at least one No sooner
Speaker 1: had I come to that conclusion. Then I realized we
Speaker 1: had more way more than one thirty plus fish in
Speaker 1: the first net. Tim and I were floored. We had
Speaker 1: more than doubled all of last year's catching. The first net,
Speaker 1: it was the net that we had the most confidence
Speaker 1: in until I pulled it up and saw how loaded
Speaker 1: it was. I immediately thought about the one we placed near
Speaker 1: the main river channel and a big eddy. I thought
Speaker 1: that one had a lot of promise, just going by
Speaker 1: what Jerry had told us and what I'd learned from
Speaker 1: watching Brady's videos on YouTube. Two mile ride to the
Speaker 1: next net took forever, but we passed the time seeing
Speaker 1: who could smile the biggest as we hooped and hollered
Speaker 1: all the way down the river to where it's sent.
Speaker 1: This took several drags until I finally hooked the line
Speaker 1: and started put the net, and I didn't get it
Speaker 1: to the surface before I started feeling a net shake
Speaker 1: with fish. This catch was bigger than the first, and
Speaker 1: it took me several tries to get it in the boat.
Speaker 1: The third net may have been the biggest catch of
Speaker 1: all that day. It was all I could do to
Speaker 1: get it loaded and dumped in the floor of our vessel.
Speaker 1: Almost one hundred and twenty five fish we reset each net.
Speaker 1: Now to think that I'd laughed the night before talking
Speaker 1: to Tim on the phone when he told me Jerry said,
Speaker 1: we may catch more fish than we want to skin.
Speaker 1: Now that wasn't the case. But for the next two
Speaker 1: hours we stood at the end gate of TAM's truck
Speaker 1: and filaied fish until we'd put almost sixty pounds of
Speaker 1: catfish filets on ice to take home. We looked at
Speaker 1: what we'd done and bashed in the glory of the
Speaker 1: big pile of fish that we caught and cleaned, and
Speaker 1: I looked at him, I said, buddy, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of fish. He kept staring at the fruit of our
Speaker 1: labor and said, some folks may be getting and fish
Speaker 1: for Christmas this year, or they very well might be.
Speaker 1: I've given some away to my neighbors on both sides
Speaker 1: of them, and I plan on sharing some with the
Speaker 1: others too. And if you want to see a smile
Speaker 1: on someone's face, just surprising them with a mess of
Speaker 1: freshly cleaned fish. If you want to see me and
Speaker 1: Tim smiling, go over to my Instagram and watch the
Speaker 1: reel I've put together. Tim and I run the nets
Speaker 1: that day. We baited them and reset them like I said,
Speaker 1: And three days later we had to go back and
Speaker 1: check them, not because we couldn't wait, but because I'm
Speaker 1: having to leave to go Turkey ount with some friends
Speaker 1: down in Mississippi. This time I brought a bigger ice chest,
Speaker 1: more ice, and Tim had gotten a customed skinning board
Speaker 1: made that would allow us both space to filey and
Speaker 1: hook fish to be skinned. Whole long story short, the
Speaker 1: river came up four feet during those three days, and
Speaker 1: when that happens, the fish fall the rise and they
Speaker 1: move onto the newly flooded ground where the fresh food
Speaker 1: is unco The prediction had been a rise of less
Speaker 1: than half a foot, which could have been equally as
Speaker 1: bad for where we'd sit the nets as well, but
Speaker 1: not as likely. But four feet, man, that's a fish
Speaker 1: and killer on the net. Out of the three nets,
Speaker 1: we call one fish, and we turned him loose after
Speaker 1: we made him promise not to tell his butdi is
Speaker 1: what we were doing. Time will tell if a catfish
Speaker 1: can be trusted to keep his mouth shut. By the
Speaker 1: time this episode is aired, I hope to have had
Speaker 1: my foot on the neck of a flopping Mississippi longbeard.
Speaker 1: Time will tell on that met Either Auction House Oddities
Speaker 1: is up until April the ninth, so you still got
Speaker 1: a few days to check that out. Lots of cool
Speaker 1: it of including an all inclusive coon hunt for two
Speaker 1: with me Old Whaling and my pals down here in Arkansas.
Speaker 1: That's right, two people. The folks and Bozeman were pretty
Speaker 1: stoked to hear, so you never know if somebody else
Speaker 1: in the meat of the crew may be crashing the party.
Speaker 1: And we're not through with the net fishing series just yet.
Speaker 1: I still got to get my hoop nets prepped in
Speaker 1: into the water. I love the turkey hunt, but that gum.
Speaker 1: This net fishing is fun, but the waiting that's the
Speaker 1: hardest part. Check out the Meat Either live events and
Speaker 1: get your tickets before they sellout. My river boat pilot
Speaker 1: trainee Clayton Nukelem, along with the usual suspects, will be
Speaker 1: at every show. I thank you for listening, and until
Speaker 1: next week, this is brit Reeves. Sign it off. Y'all
Speaker 1: be careful