In the early 70s I was wade fishing with my Dad, and we came across a sycamore that had been knocked over by the last high water.

The entire root system was in about 4-5 feet of water, creating a perfect hole for redeye. Using go-devils, we began pulling redeye after redeye--big SLABS up to 10" long--out of this hole.

As usual, I was "stringer boy" for Dad. I had a chain stringer with the top loop around my belt buckle. Each time one of us would catch a fish, I'd add it to the stringer.

When you get 20 hawg live redeye on a stringer tied to your belt loop, and you're standing in water up to your chest, you learn to ignore the sensation of them pulling against your waist. The more fish you put on there, the more they pull, the more you ignore it.

The bite finally slowed down and we decided to hit the shore and walk up to the next hole. I took a few steps up to a shoal and pulled the stringer up so it wouldn't drag on the rocks.

When I did, my day was made considerably more interesting when I also pulled up a 4-foot cottonmouth that had made a meal of several redeye and was clamped down tight on his next victim.

Later on, my dad asked me if I was scared. I told him, no, I just hadn't climbed a sycamore tree in a while and I was feeling nostalgic.

Seriously, I threw that stringer as far as I could faster than the speed of light. The fact that it was still attached to my shorts seemed a minor detail at the time. Besides, they were probably stained anyway.

I took the rest of the summer off from wading the creek.

JCB