The Fisbes of our Boyhood 105 



valuable lake shad. They ran large, ranging from 

 one to ten pounds, took various baits, especially 

 crayfish and worms, and fought fairly well upon 

 light tackle. All their upper parts were of a pretty, 

 silvery blue, which below shaded off to a dead 

 white, like white kid. In the head of this fish, also 

 in the head of at least one seafish, are two enamel- 

 like substances. These, in the drum, are roughly 

 circular, flattish, and in large fish about the size of 

 a nickel. These substances are by the boys termed 

 " lucky stones," and the boy's first business after 

 landing a " sheepshead " was to crush its skull with 

 his heel, or something as convenient, and extract 

 those two precious affairs. One or more of them 

 lurked in every boy's pocket, for were they not 

 equal to the famed rabbit's foot of the South ? No 

 boy cared to hook and lose a sheepshead, and none 

 would think of casting away the useless dead body 

 without first " gettin' his luckies." The " stones " 

 were marked upon one side with a design which sug- 

 gested a pollard willow with a badly bent trunk, the 

 rough resemblance of this bent trunk to a letter L, 

 presumably being the origin of the luck theory. 



I have caught scores of these fish, yet never tasted 

 one, and I have yet to meet a white man who has 

 eaten sheepshead. It is believed that the fish is 

 astonishingly tough and flavorless, requiring a power 

 of chewing. This may or may not be true. It cer- 

 tainly is a fine-looking fish, and, quite possibly, 

 the boyish prejudice, like many another, really had 

 no sound foundation. Occasionally a negro would 

 take home a large specimen, but the majority of 

 the dusky Waltonians declared the fish "pizen fo' 



