382 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 19, 1895. 



7ff ^partmimt ^anmt. 



IN JONES'S BAYOU.-I. 



Chattanooga, Term., Oct. 5.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: I have just put down a c©py of Forest and 

 Stream of Aug. 10 and had been reading the account 

 given by Horace Kephart of the Arkansas swamp country. 

 I have hunted and traveled so many miles in this inden^ 

 tical country that an account of it possesses a peculiar 

 interest for me. I was once engaged on a Burvey from 

 Alexandria, La., to Pine Bluff, Ark., and crossed the 

 White, Arkansas and Red River Bwamps. We did very 

 little hunting, as we were buBy; but I can vouch for the 

 plenitude of both deer and bear, and the finest waters 

 for fishing. I have never been in a country where deer 

 are more plentiful than in the blue cane of Arkansas, 

 excepting one place. That place is the rolling pine for- 

 ests of -western Louisiana that lie between the Red River 

 and the Sabine. I gave an account of this country in a 

 former article, entitled "The Big Thick of Eastern 

 Texas." The time that I write of now was the year of 

 1883. 



I was stationed at Nitta Yuma plantation, on Deer 

 Creek, twelve miles north of Rolling Fork, Miss. The 

 plantation was the property of Dr. and Mrs. Phelps. My 

 rod man, Julian Fleming, and I had been comfortably 

 located in the elegant home of Dr. Phelps all winter. We 

 were engaged in the engineering department of the rail- 

 road running from Memphis to New Orleans, following 

 the course of the Mississippi River. 



We had been unusually fortunate in gaining an entree 

 into the family of Dr. Phelps. The railroad ran through 

 his plantation, and as we came to him well recommended 

 he opened his hospitable doors and invited ub to stop with 

 him. We had been there about four months, enjoying 

 the fruits of his well-laden table and the society of his 

 charming wife and daughters, when lo! our death knell 

 came. We received orders about April 1 to go to Jones's 

 Bayou, eighty miles south of Memphis, in Bolivar county, 

 Miss., and to report there at once to Maj. Gordon, the 

 locating engineer, and in charge of the construction of 

 that division of the road. I had heard of that part of the 

 line and somehow had a presentiment that it would fall 

 to my lot to go there and live about twelve or eighteen 

 months with the natives and wild animals. What a 

 change, from the elegant society of a true Mississippi 

 gentleman's family to that of the typical swamp craGk- 

 ers, who inhabited the canebrakes of Bolivar county. 

 Well, the change must come. So about the 1st of April 

 we bade farewell to our kind friends at Nitta Yuma plan- 

 tation, and Fleming and I took the road to Bolivar county. 



We hired a conveyance that landed us in two days at 

 Greenville. There we completed our equipment for camp 

 life and I supplied myself with a good .44 Winchester. I 

 already owned a .32cal. of the same gun, so I thought I 

 was prepared to make the best of swamp life, if swamp it 

 must be. 



We remained at Greenville several days, then hired a 

 good mule team and driver to carry us and our luggage 

 to Jones's Bayou. We had about fifty miles to travel in 

 that wagon through aB dismal swamp country as a man 

 ever set foot in. My, how lonesome and desolate I felt! 

 and Fleming was worse off than I was. He had jusc 

 graduated at Bethlehem University in Pennsylvania, and 

 having lived in Philadelphia all his life he was a tender- 

 foot sure enough. I had lots of fun at his expense, trying 

 to make out that the country was a gread deal worse 

 than it really was. I needed something to elevate my 

 own spirits. 



Well, after the second day of jolting in the wagon we 

 arrived at Jones's Bayou in the middle of a sixty-mile 

 canebrake. There were a few old settlers living along 

 the banks of the bayou wherever they could find a point 

 of ground above high water mark. So we chose the 

 most inviting looking of the places, and alighting at the 

 gate soon made arrangements for board. The next day 

 I mounted a horse, and riding several miles to the camp 

 of the locating engineer's party found Major Gordon. I 

 was instructed that I was expected to take charge of the 

 grading and trestle building on twenty miles of line and 

 that I was located just in the center of my work. Well 

 I was glad of that, as I was 1 told also that the small farms 

 on Jones's Bayou were about the only cleared places in 

 Bolivar county; as the balance of the county up to pres- 

 ent explorations was a solid canebrake. Eheu! I will 

 use that word now, as I belong to the church at the pres- 

 ent time and have begged forgiveness for my past sins; 

 but I did not need any one to supply adjectives for me at 

 that time. Thanks, Brother Dick of Connecticut, for 

 helping me out with a suitable expression for my disgust 

 of that country. Well, enough of this. But, reader, 

 just imagine if you can a poor disconsolate cuss doomed 

 to live at least eighteen months in the middle of a cane- 

 brake sixty miles long and forty miles wide, "blue cane," 

 tool and some of it as large as your wrist and 20ft. high; 

 or, as Kephart says, "a perfect sea of fish poles." 



Well, kind friends, if I had not been a natural born 

 lover of all outdoor sport by heredity, as well aB by in- 

 clination and cultivation of my feelings, I could not have 

 stood the test. 



I at least learned how to hunt while I was in that cane- 

 brake, and came forth eighteen months afterward with 

 more experience and trophies of my skill than I could 

 have acquired in some time in the ordinary course of 

 life. 



It was April, so I sheathed both of my rifles, like a good 

 sportsman, and went to work. I enjoyed the fishing at 

 all Bpare hours, however, and kept our table constantly 

 supplied with bass, perch and brim. There was a lake or 

 old bed of the Mississippi River about five miles from mv 

 lodging place, which 1 soon found. 



I always "Do in Rome as Romans do," so the first 

 thing I did upon my entrance into Jones's Bayou society 

 was to cultivate the acquaintance of the people. I boarded 

 with Mrs. Beavers, who was a widow. She had two 

 grown sons named Lemand John and a son-in-law named 

 Jim Pyron. Just across the bayou lived Uncle Andrew 

 Jackson Taylor, who in his younger days had been the 

 best hunter and trapper in that whole section of country 

 and who knew every water hole and game trail in this 

 region. Up the bayou one mile lived Uncle Z achary Tay- 

 lor Jones, who had four grown sons and a yard full of 

 sandy-haired girls. Two miles up the bayou lived Uncle 

 John Randolph Martin, who had no children at home 

 but said he was the father of ten or eleven grown-up sons 



and daughters who were scattered all over Missouri and 

 Arkansas. 



Eheu! Why did I not have some forewarning of the 

 illustrious neighborhood that I was emigrating to? If I 

 had only known in time, my name would have been Alex- 

 ander of Macedonia Julius Caesar Hannibal Nelson Howe 

 Marlborough Napoleon Bonaparte William Pitt Wing- 

 field. However, when I told my new friends that I was 

 born and raised in the State of nativity of Howell Cobb, 

 Alexander Stevens and Benj. Hill, and now resided in the 

 State organized by John Sevier, Sam Houston and Davy 

 Crockett, and that gave birth to Andrew Jackson and 

 Zachary Taylor, they received me with open arms. I had 

 gotten right "plumb" (excuse the expression) in the mid- 

 dle of a lot of old Tennessee settlers, and the fact that I 

 hailed from the "old home" of these plain but honest peo- 

 ple gave me an entree into their best society and good 

 wishes. I do not intend to make fun of these people, but 

 I cannot refrain from noting the ludicrous nomenclature 

 of all the residents. Nearly every one of the older set 

 was named for some of our illustrious forefathers, from 

 George Washington on down the line. 



Well, one day I was passing Uncle John Randolph 

 Martin's house about dinner hour, and the old man hailed 

 me, and nothing would do him but that Fleming and I 

 should come in and "have a bite of grub." These people 

 when they once take a fancy to one cannot do enough for 

 you. Everything on earth that they have they will press 

 upon you, and not one cent will they take in return for 

 time, accommodation or any article they furnish you. If 

 you are stingy or close in dealing with them, however, 

 you might as well "pack your duds," as they say, and 

 leave the country. Many a hundred of Winchester car- 

 tridges and many a fancy hunting knife or drinking cup 

 or cartridge belt, or some nice article, that they took a 

 fancy to, have I left in Bolivar county, Miss. We went 

 in and took our seats at Uncle Martin's table — not, how- 

 ever, until we had removed our coats, to be in keeping 

 with our surroundings. Uncle Martin hunted and fished 

 for a living "mostly." He cultivated a small field of corn 

 and owned a large drove of hogs that lived the year 

 around on the heavy mast, and also a considerable herd 

 of cattle that thrived and fattened on the switch cane and 

 bull weeds. 



Each resident has "his mark," and it is considered a 

 greater crime to kill and steal a steer or hog that belongs 

 to one of the neighbors than to kill a man. Uncle Martin 

 opened the conversation about as follows: "Well! Wing- 

 field, they tell me that you have got two brand new 

 repeaters down at your lodging place, and that you can 

 shoot a squirrel's eye out with airy one of them." 



"Not quite so good as that, Uncle Martin, but I am not 

 a bad shot." 



"Well, as I don't do nothing else much but hunt and 

 fish, we will be good trottin' mates." 



"All right! Uncle Martin, I would rather hunt than eat 

 any day, so I will be with you." 



Uncle Martin then told me of the lake or "Snake 

 River," as he called it, and said that he had a dugout or 

 canoe on the river and invited me to come up next morn- 

 ing and go fishing with him. It is needless to say that I 

 accepted. I was looking for just such chances as that to 

 find out the country and learn the watering places of 

 game and the fishing places. I tried to induce Fleming 

 to go with me, but he had no sporting inclinations and so 

 remained at home. 



By sunrise next morning I was at Uncle Martin's house 

 mounted on a mule, with creel slung over shoulder and 

 with a new outfit. I had a split-bamboo jointed rod at 

 the house, but did not bring it, as Uncle Martin said 

 there were plenty of poles over on the river bank. I ako 

 remembered that I was in the land of fish-poles, so I did 

 not bother myself in carrying one. Uncle Martin was 

 waiting for me with his mule tied to the fence, and as 

 soon as he saw me coming he mounted. We at once 

 struck into a cattle trail that led through a solid wall of 

 cone, and after traveling for something over an hour 

 came out on the bank of the river; The Mississippi River 

 is now thirty miles from the point we were at, but some 

 time back in the ages it had run through this channel. 

 The river often cuts through a bend, thus straightening 

 its course, and leaves the old bed miles back in the 

 swamp, Thus Snake River was formed. Land that used 

 to be in Mississippi is now in Arkansas, and vice versa. 

 The town of Greenville, Miss., has been moved back from 

 where it used to be more than a mile in the last thirty 

 years, and the old town site is now near the middle of the 

 river. We at once dismounted, and while Uncle Martin 

 was selecting and cutting a half dozen nice poles, I began 

 turning over logs and chunks looking for angle-worms. 

 I soon had an oyster can full and came up to Uncle 

 Martin humming a tune, and ejaculating on what fine 

 worms I had secured. Upon my word, I never saw such 

 worms. Some of them looked to me to be a foot long 

 and as large as a lead pencil. This rich alluvial soil, over- 

 flowed every year as it is, seems to grow everything rank, 

 even to angle-worms. 



We set to work fishing from the bank. I got out a 

 perch hook and fine, and taking a comfortable position on 

 an old log, with my back against a tree, prepared to have 

 a lazy time of it. But not much of a lazy time did I have. 

 I soon got intensely interested and forgot that there was 

 a tree behind me to lean against. Uncle Martin was 

 squatted on the bank a few yards from me, with his home- 

 made line, which looked as big as a shoe string, chawing 

 his quid and spitting tobacco juice for a rod out into the 

 stream. 



All at once "kersplash" went my red striped and 

 streaked cork; down under the water it went and did not 

 return, Old Uncle Martin chuckled. "Them Limrock 

 hooks of your'n is good uns," he said; "kotch the fust fish 

 that tackled it. I'll get one and try it myself terreckly." 



I now felt my fish tugging with all its might at my line, 

 aid as luck would have it I had made the line of ample 

 length, so that I could oast it out 25 or 30ft. into the 

 stream. The fish never once let my cork come to sur- 

 face, and after playing him around a few minutes as best 

 I could with the long cane pole, dragged him out end- 

 ways and landed him on the bank. He was a beauty, a 

 genuine brim. How his scales did sparkle, and his many 

 colored sides flashed a gleam of joy to my heart for every 

 color reflected. My first fish weighed approximately 

 21bs, 



Now it was Uncle Martin's turn. His bottle stopper 

 went under, and before you could wink your eye— "ker- 

 plunk 1" his fish hit the bank 25ft. from the place where 

 he was sitting. I had to laugh. The old man turned 



around and in a half-insulted tone of voice said, "What 

 in the eheu air you laughing at?" 



"Why, the manner in which you captured that fish of 

 course, Uncle Martin." 



"Well, hain't hit all right?" 



"Why, of course it'B all right; but I never saw one 

 caught as quick as that before." 



"That is all right then, I 'lowed that you wus making 

 fun of me." . 6 



"Oh, no! Uncle Martin, I would never make fun of 

 you; I think too much of you to do that." But 1 was 

 almost ready to explode. To this day I can see that old 

 man grab his pole, put one end of it between his knees and 

 come over-handed with that perch. 



It was a good one too, about the same size as mine, but 

 of a different variety. His fish was what we call in 

 Georgia and Tennessee a "goggle-eyed perch." It was 

 black on the back like a bass, had red eyes and a big 

 mouth like a bass. These perch are the most voracious 

 of any species of fish we have in our Southern waters. 

 They will bite at anything, from a young wasp to a live 

 minnow. They are game too, and don't you forget it. A 

 2 or 3 -pounder will make a reel hum a tune. 



I had hardly gotten my bait back into the river before 

 another fish had it. I gave him a little twitch, just 

 enough to hook him, and then played him until he was 

 tired down. My -pole was at least 20ft. long and 

 the line about 30ft., and by pulling it in and running the 

 pole out as far as I could reach, I could make a pretty 

 good-sized circle with it. While I was thus engaged, 

 Uncle Martin made another "yank" with both hands over 

 his shoulder just the same as before. I burst out laugh- 

 ing this time, but before the old man could say anything 

 I apologized to him and told him that I was not laughing 

 at him, but at his method of catching fish. He brought 

 out his fish, a nice large sun perch. 



The old man gathered his perch in, put him on the 

 string and seated himself again. All this time my fish 

 was swimming back and forth in a half circle, coming in 

 and then going out in the stream again. It kept me busy 

 too, as I felt the line strain several times when I was too 

 slow in slipping the pole through my hands. At last I 

 succeeded in tiring him down, and dragging him close up 

 to the bank, got Uncle Martin to go down to the water's 

 edge and run his hands under him and lift him out. He 

 was a goggle-eyed perch and as large a specimen as I ever 

 saw. He must have weighed 4lbs. I told Uncle Martin 

 that I considered that a fine piece of work, to catch as 

 large a fish as that with a perch line and a little delicate 



ferch hook and no reel to play him with. He asked what 

 meant by a reel, and l told him I would show him. I 

 then picked up my creel and emptied it on the ground by 

 his side, showed him my reel and how it worked on the 

 jointed pole I had at home, and also all the new-fangled 

 fishing tackle that I had, including a spoon and troll line 

 and a pocketbook with every imaginable hook and fly 

 that one could want. He looked at it in astonishment 

 and then said, "An' did you buy all them doin's iest to 

 ketch fish with?" 

 "I most certainly did," said I. 



"Gee whiz! An' what did you pay fur all them tricks." 

 I counted Jup $12 for a split-bamboo pole, $8 for a moder- 

 ately good reel and about $15 worth of hooks, lines, flies, 

 corks, sinkers, leaders, etc. ; total $35. The old man liked 

 to have fallen over backward. "Well," he said, "I 

 have seed and hearn of some mighty powerful fools in 

 my time; but you are the durndest biggest fool I ever 

 heard tell of! Why, man, $35 will buy five steers, and 

 them good uns at that." 



"Why, Uncle Martin, my little outfit here some of our 

 Eastern sportsmen would not pick up in the road. I 

 have seen Englishmen and New Yorkers come to Pensa- 

 cola and Jacksonville, Fla., with fishing outfits that cost 

 over $100; and one Englishman, Mr. Jno. Scott, used to 

 come to my father's farm in Georgia every year and hunt 

 quail, and he had a Greener shotgun with four different 

 barrels and one stock that he said he paid $800 for." The 

 old man listened attentively and when I finished only 

 grunted. I think he thought I waB trying to stuff him 

 and would not express himself. Well, we fished on, never 

 changing our location, as the perch and brim were bit- 

 ing just as fast as we could attend to them. 



About 10 o'clock the old man said he was tired of 

 "yanking perch" and would go and get his boat and he 

 would show me some fishing right. I could not see, to 

 save my life, how it could be any better, as we must have 

 had at least a bushel of as fine fish as I ever saw. I was 

 eager to see what he meant, however. He disappeared up 

 the bank and in ten minutes I saw.him floating down 

 toward me, steering with a long paddle and standing per- 

 fectly erect in a boat I was afraid to sit down in. He 

 called it his "perogue." It was nothing on earth but a 

 log hollowed out and sharpened at both ends, and would 

 turn over if you looked at it cross-eyed. I surveyed his 

 boat suspiciously and told him that I was a good swim- 

 mer; but did not care to get my clothes all wet and have 

 to remain so all day. Uncle Martin chuckled and said, 

 "Crawl in; thar hain't nairy bit o' danger. I hain't 

 paddled this kind of a boat for fifty years and crossed the 

 Mississippi a hundred times in one for nothin', and not 

 learn something." 



Well, I did not want to appear afraid, so I pulled off my 

 coat and vest and shoes with the firm conviction that I 

 would have to swim out. But I sat level and did not scare 

 every time the boat reeled to the water's edge, so we did 

 not get wet, Uncle Martin stood up straight as an arrow 

 in the stern of the little rocking thing and did not seem at 

 all uneasy. His complacency soon restored my equilibrium 

 of mind and I was laughing and jesting with him in three 

 minutes after I entered the dugout. 



He paddled out 200yds. from the bank and all at once 

 he dropped the paddle in the bottom of the boat and 

 reached down after a harpoon which was in the boat. He 

 said: "I see 'em, they are busters too." I said, "See what?" 

 ''Why, them fish; don't you see 'em?" I looked, and just 

 ahead of us was a school of buffalo fish, some eighteen or 

 twenty, lying just under the water sunning themselves. 

 The old man steadied himself, raised his harpoon, then 

 sent it flying through the air. The coil of line was around 

 his arm. The harpoon went straight to the mark, for it 

 had scarcely struck the water when the line commenced 

 to spin out at a terrific gait. Uncle Martin never moved 

 a muscle. Only allowed the line to run through bis horny 

 hand, checking the fish every now and then. When the 

 end was almost reached he checked him and then the fi h 

 commenced to tow the light canoe around, In ten or fif- 

 teen minutes he had it played out, and then dragging it 



